Beeple Sells Another NFT For $6M To Raise Awareness For Climate Change

Beeple, a graphic designer from Charleston, SC, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, just sold another piece of tokenized artwork for $6 million to Justin Sun, the founder of Tron blockchain.

What Happened: The NFT was titled “Ocean Front,” which Beeple deems a tribute to the global fight against climate change. The artist said on Twitter that the proceeds from the sale would go towards supporting the cause.

“Your support helped make this a huge success that will do real good for the world,” commented Beeple after the sale.

The NFT was part of The Carbon Drop collection, offered by the Open Earth Foundation – a non-profit harnessing blockchain technology and NFTs to bring climate change awareness to the digital art space. The collection included eight unique “carbon negative” NFTs inspired by the Earth and climate crisis.

Much like Christie’s auction, the majority of bidding took place in the last 40 minutes of the auction, which saw the likes of Justin Sun and 3F Music competing to outbid each other until the final moments of the auction, which took place on Nifty Gateway.

Why It Matters: The winning bid for $6 million came from Justin Sun, a Chinese entrepreneur who founded the Tron TRX/USD blockchain and consequently acquired Bit Torrent (BTT) in 2018.

Sun claims that he was an active bidder in the final moments of the Christie’s auction, which saw Beeple sell his NFT titled “The First 5,000 Days” for $69 million. According to him, his final bid amounted to $69 million, and he was effectively outbid by another buyer in the last 20 seconds for a difference of $250k.

“I tried to update my bid to $70 MIL at the last 30 secs yet my offer was somehow not accepted by Christie’s system even though there was still 20 secs left (sic),” said Sun on Twitter, a day after the auction had closed.