Highlights
- Pak’s Merge auction set a new sales record for a single artwork sold publicly by a live artist with $91.8 million in sales.
- Pak also introduced a novel feature that rewards collectors for subsequent purchases.
In a joint announcement, Pak, a digital artist, and Nifty Gateway, a major NFT Platform, said that the Merge auction set a new world record for the amount of money raised by a single artwork auctioned publicly by an active live artist.
The collection also introduced the concept of a mechanic novel to the area of digital art, with patrons who made purchases during the sale period receiving an exclusive NFT that grew in size as they added more pieces to their collection
Over the course of just 48 hours, 28,983 collectors spent a total of $312,686 mass units for a total of $91,806,519 dollars.
From December 2 to December 4, users were permitted to accumulate as much mass as they want. At the conclusion of the auction, they will receive a dynamic NFT that combines all of the mass they have accumulated over the auction period. Collectors who purchase mass on the secondary market and “merge” it with their own mass in order to increase their NFT are known as mergerists.
The technique allows for the consolidation of the quantity of mass available on the market, resulting in a reduction in the number of tokens available over time while preserving the total amount of mass available. This creative mechanic, which makes use of NFT technology in a novel way, draws attention to the social character of art collection as well as the scarcity of the market.
Pak, an enigmatic artist who has spent decades at the forefront of digital art, chose Nifty Gateway in particular because he wanted to create a piece of art that would push the boundaries of the medium. Pak had previously pioneered the concept of Open Editions on Nifty Gateway, which allowed collectors to purchase as many NFTs as they wanted for a predetermined amount during the sale period.
Pak created Merge as a novel approach to rewarding patrons that is only possible because of blockchain technology and the infrastructure of Nifty Gateway. Pak is the creator of the Nifty Gateway.
It was Pak who shared his thoughts on the significance of the milestone their artwork had just reached. “This will be the first time such an achievement is made, and not by a third-party auction house, but by a web3 tech business,” he said, reflecting on the significance of the achievement their artwork had just reached.
“This is a historic moment for NFTs, with one of the world’s most accomplished digital artists achieving a new world record at Art Basel.” “This is just another demonstration that NFTs are a type of artistic creation and creativity that can only be properly merged with blockchain technology,”
The co-founder of Nifty Gateway, Duncan Cock Foster, stated,
The announcement comes after a series of significant developments for Nifty Gateway. A unique custodial architecture has enabled the company to become the first NFT platform to offer collectors much lower GAS pricing as a result of its recent acquisition (saving them 70 percent ). Nifty Gateway has also begun displaying NFTs from other marketplaces and allowing users to advertise and buy NFTs in ETH directly from their wallets, as well as accepting NFTs from other marketplaces.
