The mysterious person who managed to outbid Tron founder Justin Sun to become the proud owner of the “The First 5000 Days” non-fungible token created by graphic designed Mike Winkelmann (a.k.a. Beeple) is MetaKovan, the pseudonymous founder of NFT fund Metapurse, according to an announcement posted by the Christie’s auction house.
On March 11, Beeple's digital artwork was sold for a record-shattering $69.3 million. Notably, the initial bid was only $100.
The most expensive JPG file in history is a combination of 5,000 artworks that were created by the Wisconsin native over the span of over 13 years.
In a tweet, Sun claimed that he was outbid in the final seconds of the two-week auction by a mere $250,000.
The Beeple NFT could be worth over $1 billion
MetaKovan—whose real identity remains unknown—claims that his NFT is the most valuable artwork of this generation, predicting that it could be worth over $1 billion one day:
When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat. And here's why - it represents 13 years of everyday work. Techniques are replicable and skill is surpassable, but the only thing you can't hack digitally is time. This is the crown jewel, the most valuable piece of art for this generation. It is worth $1 billion.
Twobadour, the steward of Metapurse who works with MetaKovan, told CNBC that the artwork could be tokenized in the future, but making money is not their main priority.