Considering his unpretentious demeanour and modest lifestyle, Vignesh Sundaresan bears little resemblance to what you might expect from a traditional wealthy art collector.
In fact, the 32-year-old blockchain entrepreneur is responsible for catapulting Beeple into the ranks of the most expensive living artists with the purchase of his digital artwork for $69.3 million (€57.8 million).
The sale also set the record for the price of a non-fungible token, or NFT, which uses blockchain technology to authenticate digital files not existing in material form. Even for me to spend that much money, it s quite hard, says Indian-born Sundaresan. I don t throw money on stuff, I like to think I m very reasonable when it comes to the real world and so it was hard on me also.
US$69mil digital art buyer - who lives in Singapore - shines light on 'NFT' boom
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NFT : rencontre avec Vignesh Sundaresan, l'acquéreur de l'œuvre d'art à 70 millions de dollars
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Vignesh Sundaresan (
pic), 32, is casually dressed in a T-shirt and chinos, lives in a regular Singapore apartment, and does not own any property or a car – with most of his investments in the virtual world.
“My prize possession would be my computer. And maybe my watch, ” the Indian-born programmer, also known by his pseudonym MetaKovan, told media from his sparsely decorated flat.
His unpretentious demeanour offers no clue that he is a multimillionaire investor financing a fund focused on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which use blockchain technology to turn anything from art to internet memes into virtual collectors’ items.
Last month, Sundaresan purchased the world’s most expensive NFT – American artist Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days”, highlighting how virtual work is establishing itself as a new creative genre.