I magine the art you could buy with $40,000. A Picasso drawing. A Judy Chicago. An Ed Ruscha. Whatever it might be, a few pixelated animals on the internet probably don’t come to mind.
Fedya Chobanyan, however, claims that purchasing these digital works, called NFTs, would be the better choice. The 19-year-old is an amateur mixed martial arts fighter who trains in North Hollywood. Since he doesn’t yet earn income from his bouts, he’s quite proud of the collection of three items he’s already amassed. Not only does Chobanyan consider his NFTs to be works of art; he also believes they will one day help make him rich. He declines to say how much he paid for the NFTs, but the combined value of three similar items is currently hovering at around $40,000, or 12.86 in the cryptocurrency Ether. If Chobanyan were to offer up his NFTs today, he estimates, they would fetch 30 times what he originally paid.
Spending anything—let alone hundreds or thousands of dollars—on something that cannot be touched, tasted, or enjoyed in person might sound ludicrous, but Chobanyan is far from alone in this endeavor. Last year, NFT sales reached $25 billion. Their value was increasing so rapidly that many purchased them and flipped them days later for significant profits.
After acquiring his latest NFT, a 2-D shark, part of a series titled Marine Marauderz, Chobanyan tweeted, “Some guy just laughed at my profile pic! I’ll laugh when I make $$$$ out of @MarineMarauderz! Some people will laugh at you then ask you how you did it! Knowledge is everything! Some people don’t have any of it!”
A curious aspect of the NFT market is that not everyone who owns one is “in the know.” Unlike in the traditional art world, where would-be collectors without riches or a blue-blood pedigree are often looked down on, can get in on NFTs. There are no black-turtlenecked gallerists staring you down for asking what the red dot next to a painting means or for wearing clothes that are not exactly haute couture. And enthusiasm is rewarded. The self-professed students of this marketplace claim that buying the right NFT opens doors to various ecosystems of support, camaraderie, status, and business opportunities. While different groups rally around different NFTs of, say, drowsy apes, humanoid turtles, bears, or even punk
