Fact
The $69M Beeple buyer already owned 2% of Beeple
Geoffrey Woo notes that the buyer of the $69M Beeple NFT sold at Christie's already held a 2% stake in Beeple — meaning insiders were pumping the artist's value. Because NFTs aren't securities, this self-dealing isn't insider trading and isn't illegal.
“the Beeple art piece that sold for $69 million at Christie's, the buyer— Beeple had 2% of that, uh, stake, right? Like, they were pumping up Beeple's art value, right? Like, that is like well known within like the hardcore NFT art collection. Like, it was a self- deal, don't trade. Like, he is pumping his own art pieces, right? It's almost like a— like, because they're not securities, it's probably not insider trading, not illegal, right?”
Story
Chuck E. Cheese money: why whales overpay for NFTs
Shaan explains why buyers drop $69M on a Beeple or $150K on a Jack Butcher piece: someone like MetaKovan turned a $5,000 Bitcoin bet into over $1 billion, so spending 70 ETH feels like cashing a few Skee-Ball tickets from a giant jackpot, not real money.
“So he's invested $5,000 into Bitcoin and is worth over $1 billion based on when he invested it. So he's reinvesting. Like I said, you go to Chuck E. Cheese, you're great at Skee-Ball, you hit the $5,000 jackpot, the tickets start spitting out of this machine. You don't think about it like spending $150,000. You think about it like spending 70 Ether and you have 70,000 Ether or whatever, right?”
Story
Beeple posted art daily for 8 years, then cashed it in for millions
The artist Beeple made a new digital piece every single day for 8-9 years and posted it to Instagram, then converted that accumulated fan love into a record-setting NFT drop and a Christie's auction.
“For 8 years, he made a different digital art every day and he posted on Instagram and they're all like amazing. And he would do one a day every single day for like 8 or 9 years. And then he like cashed in all that, like fan love through an NFT drop.”