TechFlow news, October 28 — According to Decrypt, digital artist Mike "Beeple" Winkelmann, who set a $69.3 million NFT auction record, recently delivered a speech at the Royal College of Art in London, offering deep insights into the development trajectory of the NFT market. He noted that although NFT trading volume has dropped more than 90% from its peak, the market is gradually maturing, with collectors who truly understand the technology remaining enthusiastic. "We lost a lot of people," Beeple said, "but those people were never here for the art — I could tell immediately."
Beeple stated the market during his "Everydays" auction was "100%" a bubble. "Before that, I had already been creating digital art for 20 years, and I saw people buying garbage—stuff where you just think, 'This can't hold value; this is trash.' It wasn't sustainable, and you realize that was correct." He emphasized that collectible projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club are fundamentally different from pure art NFTs. He predicted that in the future, every physical artwork will come with an NFT as a certificate of authenticity—a far superior alternative to traditional paper certificates.
Reflecting on earlier days, Beeple recalled: "Looking back, it feels insane, because NFTs were hated for much longer than they were loved. There was a brief moment when people said, 'Yes, this is the future,' and then quickly switched to, 'Oh, you bastard, don't pull this on me.'" While Beeple acknowledged the NFT market will "return to reality" and speculators have already "moved on," he pointed out that "people remain very passionate about these kinds of products," leaving behind a core group of enthusiasts who "understand the technology."
As representative examples of new technological applications, Beeple's latest works "Human One" and "The Tree of Knowledge" demonstrate the innovative potential of dynamic NFTs. Notably, "The Tree of Knowledge" uses blockchain to record real-time data including news, stock prices, cryptocurrency values, and environmental metrics.
