SuperRare, a blockchain-based digital art auction house, has seen its record broken with a 72.1 ETH ($10,027) winning bid for EthGirl, a piece by well-known crypto artists Trevor Jones and Alotta Money (aka @MoneyAlotta). The piece, a moving image that features a number of well-known crypto emblems including the Ethereum logo, the MetaMask fox, a rocket emoji, the Reddit logo, and more, sold on Sunday for the record price after a bidding war between two crypto art fans.
Final bid of 72.1 ETH ($10,027.50) from collector @Moderats was accepted this morning by artists @trevorjonesart & @money_alotta for the “EthGirl” ?! A new sale record on SR and a huge milestone for #CryptoArt, congrats to all!https://t.co/BIw0uVd4Iw https://t.co/jjPpKIAk4d pic.twitter.com/M0HRzl4Bit
— SuperRare ? (@SuperRare_co) December 15, 2019
Crypto Collaboration Strikes a Chord
Jones and Alotta Money worked together on the non-fungible token (NFT) artwork after finding inspiration in Jones’ original oil painting, Ethereum Girl with Mandolin, which is part of a new series of works by Jones for his forthcoming solo exhibition, Crypto Picasso:
I thought about wearing some ‘Daisy Duke’s’ and a crop top for this selfie in my studio but decided a #HODL tshirt made more sense. #Ethereum Girl Playing Mandolin (after Picasso), 140 x 110 cm, oil and wax on canvas. $ETH painting & prints prices at https://t.co/SFcf0vaGkR pic.twitter.com/c7ieYajhQM
— Trevor Jones ? (@trevorjonesart) September 9, 2019
Jones is a relative newcomer to the flourishing NFT artwork scene, while Alotta Money is one of its more established members, and the collaboration created a great deal of buzz in the fledgling industry, as evidenced by the record winning bid.
Jones celebrated the auction by preaching the potential of the space:
I’ve been waiting for the right time to get involved in the exciting NFT art world and when MoneyAlotta, who I’m a big fan of, reached out to me to collaborate on a piece I decided it was time. We couldn’t have planned a better outcome…Cryptoart is the future and this space is only going to continue to grow at breakneck speed. I’m really excited to be a part of it at this stage.
Not the First, and Certainly Not the Last
Art auctions on the blockchain go back as far as June 2018 when Andy Warhol piece ‘14 Small Electric Chairs’ was securitized and auctioned off in the first NFT sale of its kind. NFT art is just one of the potential implementations of NFT technology, which has seen a range of exciting use cases emerge in 2019. Microsoft, Formula 1, and a whole host of top sports teams have dipped their toes into the NFT waters in 2019, while Gemini purchased an NFT gateway in November.
