Welcome to the Funge-house

In 2017, as it reached an all-time high, it seemed suddenly everyone was talking about Bitcoin. Somewhat reassuringly among my friends, the majority, like me, were mainly talking about Bitcoin in terms such as “what the fuck is a Bitcoin?” but the number of us suddenly asking, “what the fuck is a Bitcoin?” was nevertheless testament to the fact that suddenly everyone was talking about Bitcoin.

Despite hearing tales of the millions to be made, I quickly parked cryptocurrencies on the same mental shelf of complete indifference as sports betting - Something I had no prior experience of or innate knack for, better left to the experts / toothless alcoholics in Ladbrokes. I quickly resolved that if I didn't so much as dip my toe into crypto, I'd never stand to make a fast buck but I also wouldn't stand to lose my shirt and if I never stuck my head in a Ladbrokes, I'd never stand to.... go to the toilet only to realise i'd already gone to the toilet on myself five minutes before standing whilst shouting red-faced at the tiny man riding on the back of a horse who'd just lost me the car my wife was merciful enough to leave me when she... well, left me. (Apologies to any readers who prefers soiling themselves in William Hill - I see you)

The following year, the Bitcoin price crashed, mass interest waned and I remained comfortably uninformed and aloof, minus any niggling feeling there was easy money waiting to be made on a punt (“There's gold in them there hills!!”)

Four years later, I'm finally locking intellectual horns with cryptocurrencies (read: doing a couple of searches on Google and wiki) as I grapple with ancillary terms such as “blockchains” and “Non-fungible tokens” (And you thought all tokens were fungible! Ha. You SIMPLETON!)

The reason? I read that earlier this year someone called “Beeple” sold a purely digital artwork for $69.4 million. (Guess it's been a better year for some than others...) His moniker now appears alongside Monet, Picasso and Van Gogh in rankings of the world's biggest art sales, only to get there they had to create fragile, irreplaceable masterworks, then DIE ages ago, whilst he's still knocking about with a copy of photoshop, a name a Pokemon would be embarrassed by and a 70 million dollar grin on his chevy.... oh and a Frappuccino. I bet he drinks Frappuccinos.

It shouldn't be a surprise really. Some years ago we stopped actually printing our images, despite the exponential increase in photos being taken since every mobile began arriving equipped with a high resolution camera. Jessops and Snappy Snaps all but disappeared from the high street as we began hoarding our digital files, an endless, hidden treasury of 1s and 0s, ascribed occasional “value” by a like, a comment or a share when those 1s and 0s aligned in the right combination to make our bums look covetously big or small, our teeth particularly white or our eyes particularly green. Our online cache seems to be what matters most and the art world looks to be catching on.

Who cares if you've got an actual Monet hanging in your museum anyway? The museums are all probably shut mate. Internet's not. Popular images, videos, memes and gifs get shared around the globe in less time than it takes for the Tate to restock their vending machines and now both creators and collectors alike have a means to make money from them.
By registering a “piece”, be that a digital artwork, a video clip, a meme or whatever as a non-fungible token (NFT) on a digital ledger known as a blockchain, authentic ownership can now be proven, even on heavily reproduced files. The more reproduced and widely recognised, theoretically the more potentially valuable an NFT becomes. For some buyers it's an investment, and for others, just as with fine art collecting, it'a all about bragging rights – the opportunity to nab a bit of history or ride a cultural wave.

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter recently sold his first ever tweet for a fortune. No doubt the buyer will keep themselves endlessly entertained ruminating on “just setting up my twttr” , whose price tag of $2.9 million makes it just $580,000 per word, or $725,000 per word if you only count words that are actual fucking words. Bargain!

After some 13 years on youtube in which time it racked up close to a billion views and helped popularise the notion of a viral hit, the original Charlie bit my finger video has been sold as an NFT for the equivalent of $760,999, an amount the family of the cannibalistic former toddler has said will now put all four children through university. 

Another of Beeple's creations, a 10 second digital animation featuring a seemingly collapsed Donald Trump was purchased in October 2020 by art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile for $67,000, then resold in February 2021 for $6.6 million. The sale exemplifies the recent explosion of interest in NFTs as not just the newest creative market but an investment opportunity akin to early Bitcoin. As with any hype-driven movement, there may be tears when bubbles burst but for the time being, interest is only growing.

You can't blame the artists for jumping on the NFT train. Everyone gotta eat and for every celebrated visionary earning millions for chopping a shark in half, there are dozens of extremely talented folk scraping by in a manner the Young Ones would baulk at. Crypto art platforms such as OpenSea and Foundation provide a virtual space to both show and trade their creations, whilst the blockchain provides unquestionable ownership over their intellectual property. What's more, originator have the option to retain a percentage of the profit each time an NFT changes hands so ballooning popularity and value benefit the creators, not just wily investors.

With the advent of NFT's, it seems the eternal conundrum “Is it art?” just got a Gen Z reframing.