The man who made $69 million from NFTs four years ago is still making money

Author: Cookie, Lüdong

Beeple, the man who sold a single NFT for $69 million, has long been seen as a symbol of the golden era of NFTs.

Although the NFT market is no longer as vibrant, Beeple and his team remain active in the NFT space. At this year's Art Basel, he brought a new "golden dog" to the currently sluggish NFT market—Regular Animals.

Yesterday, multiple Regular Animals NFTs were sold on OpenSea for over 10 ETH (approximately $35,000), despite being given away for free at Art Basel, with only 256 copies in total. Based on these prices, Beeple effectively distributed nearly $10 million worth of NFTs at Art Basel.

The project Beeple and his team brought to Art Basel is Regular Animals. These are robotic dogs that appear somewhat eerie, as they feature human faces—specifically those of well-known figures such as Musk, Andy Warhol, Zuckerberg, Picasso, and even Beeple himself.

It's not just their unsettling appearance—the robotic dogs are equipped with cameras on their heads that observe their surroundings and use an evolving visual algorithm to create artworks.

The celebrities represented by these robotic dogs were not chosen randomly. The selected figures were chosen because they have influenced how humans perceive the world, whether through algorithms, art, or politics. As humans, we view the world through their perspectives—and so do these robotic dogs. At Art Basel, the robotic dogs and visitors observed each other, and each moment of observation became part of the artwork created by the dogs, forming what amounts to an autobiography of these machines.

Interestingly, Regular Animals also has a physical series, consisting of 1,024 pieces in total. On eBay, someone has already listed one at a fixed price of $6,500. The market valuation suggests that the NFTs are far more valuable than the physical artworks, reminiscent of Damien Hirst’s "The Currency" series years ago, which required holders to choose between owning the physical piece or the NFT.

Prior to his success in the NFT world, Beeple had been creating artwork every day since 2007, yet never sold a piece for more than $100. After achieving fame and fortune, Beeple did not squander his wealth like some artists or crypto project founders. Instead, he acquired a studio/gallery of about 460 square meters, assembled a team of dozens of 3D artists, engineers, and researchers (including former Boeing engineers), invited Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, former director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, as an advisor, and continues to exhibit at art shows around the world while producing new artworks.

Beeple’s robotic dog exhibition has drawn attention not only within the crypto community due to pricing, but also received coverage from traditional media outlets such as the WSJ.