Digital-only artwork auctioned for nearly $70 mln

A digital artwork sold for nearly $70 million dollars at Christie's on Thursday.

It's the first sale ever in a major auction house of a piece of art that does not exist in physical form.

"Uhhhhh…. I don't even…. It's…. I.... Yeah."

Just hours after the sale, the artist - Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple - was stunned.

Twenty-two million people logged in for a chance to own his work.

Christie's says the closing bid put him in the top three most valuable living artists.

"It's like an unfathomable number, to be quite honest. It's just crazy."

The work, titled "Everydays - The First 5000 Days" - is a collage of 5,000 images he made over more than thirteen years.

And its exceptional success is part of a frenzy for what is known as Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs.

That's when a digital asset is authenticated by blockchain, which certifies its originality and ownership.

Enthusiasts and investors are pouring into what they see as a new way to invest.

And without it, Beeple says there was no legitimate way to buy digital art.

"Digital artists design websites, they design apps, they design, you know, TV shows, how TV shows look. They design how characters look in movies and in sci-fi and Marvel. That's all digital artists. So they have a huge, huge impact on the visual language of the world. And so I think now being able to collect them and sort of look at them as real artists, I'm super, super excited about."

With NFTs, the artists' royalties are locked in the contract.

Beeple receives 10% each time the work changes hands.

And it's not just digital art that can be minted as NFTs.

Music albums, sports collectibles - even tweets are being minted.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is gearing up to sell his first-ever tweet as an NFT.

Despite the hype though, some have warned of risks.

One cryptocurrency lawyer in New York says that NFTs raise issues linked to insurance, tax and intellectual property.

Still, he told Reuters he expects the entire physical art market to digitize towards NFTs in the next five years.