On March 11, auction house Christie's announced that a digital artwork by artist Beeple (real name Mike Winkelmann) had been sold for US$70 million (S$93 million).

Titled Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, the artwork is a collage of 5,000 works of art by Winkelmann which he produced one-per-day over the course of 13 years.

It was the first ever piece of art ever sold by a major auction house, that does not exist in a physical form.

The buyer was a mysterious man who went by the pseudonym Metakovan, said to be one of the oldest investors in Non-Fungible Tokens.

Buyer is immigrant from Tamil Nadu

Two days ago, Metakovan's identity was revealed: Vignesh Sundaresan, an entrepreneur, coder and angel investor in blockchain technologies.

Based on previous interviews by Metakovan, Vignesh is based in Singapore. According to The Straits Times, Vignesh is the chief executive of Portkey Technologies, an IT-consulting firm based in Singapore.

His collaborator, Anand Venkateswaran, who goes by the pseudonym Twobadour, is based in Tamil Nadu.

Both men identified themselves as Tamil Nadu immigrants who wanted to show:

"Indians and people of color that they too could be patrons, that crypto was an equalizing power between the West and the Rest, and that the global south was rising."

You can read more about Vignesh and Anand's journeys as crypto investors here.

What is a Non-Fungible Token?

This story revolves around Winkelmann's artwork, which is itself a Non-Fungible Token (NFT).

An NFT is a unique piece of digital content that can be traded on the blockchain, very much like how one trades cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum.

However the latter two are replaceable.

You can replace or exchange one unit of bitcoin with another, in the way that you exchange a S$1 coin for another S$1 coin. This is what it means to be fungible — each unit is mutually interchangeable.

Now, Non-Fungible Tokens are — by definition — not interchangeable. Each NFT is unique. In addition, NFTS have to be verified with a certificate of authenticity.

Anything can be an NFT, as long as they fulfil these requirements.

According to CNN, Twitter's founder's first tweet, a video clip of a LeBron James' slam dunk, and a 10-year-old "Nyan Cat" GIF have become NFTs.

Hold on a moment, you might say: What's to stop me from taking a screenshot of Jack Dorsey's first tweet and keeping it for myself?

Absolutely nothing. But, what the NFT offers is ownership of the tweet.

To draw an analogy: You can take a photo of the Mona Lisa, but it's not the same as owning the Mona Lisa. And people will pay a great deal to own the Mona Lisa.

If you're interested in how to sell, make, or buy NFTs, CNN has a short report here. The Verge also offers a pretty extensive explainer if you want to know more.

Top images via Christie's and LinkedIn.