Pak sells NFT for $91.8 million on Nifty Gateway: it’s a record
Pak‘s new project sales set a new record in the NFT market, totaling $91.8 million in revenue on the Nifty Gateway platform.
The Merge, that’s the name of the NFT project the Pak artist has brought to the Nifty Gateway platform between December 2 and 4, 2021.
The event introduced an unusual purchase structure, as customers could unlock an exclusive NFT that expanded as more units, called “masses,” were added.
28,000 buyers spent a total of $91.8 million to acquire 266,445 total units of NFT. After the sale Pak stated, “This is the largest sale of artwork ever sold publicly. And it didn’t happen at a traditional auction house, it happened on a web3 platform.”
At the start of the sale, each NFT had a cost of $575, for those who already owned a Pak NFT a pre-sale was available for $299 per token. Every six hours the price increased by $25, with a bonus for those who purchased more NFTs. For every 10 NFTs purchased, one was transferred to your wallet for free.
The project, as conceived, ensured a built-in mechanism of scarcity Moreover, if all 266,445 units were considered a single work, it would become the most expensive by a living artist, surpassing Jeff Koons’ record with 1986’s Rabbit sold for $91.1 million.
Pak is no stranger to such experiments in market sales. Last April, in an auction at Sotheby’s, he experimented with the concept of transformative accumulation.
Buying an NFT called a “Cube” was simply a cube-like NFT, but if a collector bought 6 “Cubes”, they got two NFTs, a “5 Cubes” and “A Cube”, both visually different. There was also a chance to get special edition “Cubes” by tweeting #PakWasHere to as many followers as possible. That project generated $17 million in sales.
Although a gimmick is involved, The Merge combines art with the social dynamics of NFT spaces, where collectivity is valued despite fierce competition. The elegance of his latest project and its “simplicity”, offers evidence that the NFT scene is maturing, becoming increasingly interested in conceptual work.
Photo Courtesy: un’immagine dal lancio di The Merge. Courtesy Nifty Gateway
