The buyer of the $69.3 million Beeple non-fungible token, sold by auction house Christie's last week, has revealed his identity.
Digital art received a boost last week with the sale of the collage «Everydays: The First 5,000 Days» by U.S.-based artist Mike Winklemann, better known as Beeple, which went under the hammer as the third amongst the most valuable artworks ever sold by a living artist
The mysterious buyer has been revealed as Singapore-based Vignesh Sundaresan, who goes by the moniker Metakovan, and Chennai-based partner Anand Venkateswaran, known as Twobadour. The two run Singapore-based non-fungible token (NFT) production studio and crypto fund Metapurse, which is founded and financed by Sundaresan.
Dropping Hints
In a blog post on Thursday, the pair said they dropped a few hints about their identity in a joint press release with Christie’s, and during a Clubhouse chatroom last week.
«The point [of revealing their identities] was to show Indians and people of colour that they too could be patrons, that crypto was an equalising power between the West and the Rest, and that the global south was rising,» they wrote.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Sundaresan, an immigrant from Tamil Nadu, is CEO of Singapore consulting firm Portkey Technologies and co-founder of bitcoin ATM provider BitAccess.
Crown Jewel
«This is the crown jewel, the most valuable piece of art for this generation. It is worth $1 billion,» Metakovan said about «Everydays: The First 5,000 Days,» in the Christie's announcement.
According to Metapurse, the fund contains «some of the most iconic NFTs in existence,» and previously purchased a complete set of the 20 first-edition «Beeple Everydays: The 2020 Collection» for $2.2 million in what was previously a record-breaking auction in December 2020.
