Following the iconic $70 million auction of Beeple’s digital artwork today, a crypto token representing partial ownership of the auctioned collection surged by 89% in less than 30 minutes. 

Metapurse Acquired 20 Pieces

A piece of digital art called “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” was auctioned for $69.34 million at Christie’s this morning. The NFT token represents the ownership of a collage created by digital artist Mike Winkelmann (aka “Beeple”) over 5000 days.

Metapurse acquired 20 pieces from the collection made on Jan. 1 each year. Later, the firm issued a combined token, B20, representing joint ownership of the collection, including the digital museum that houses the collection. Metapurse said that it is “fractionalizing ownership, not the assets themselves.”

The firm spent $2.2 million on Beeple’s auction and $1.3 million on the design of the virtual museum, for a total of $3.5 million.

Price of B20 Token Has Surged

There are 10 million B20 tokens in circulation. Metapurse retained 59% of the ownership and transferred 2% to Beeple. The firm sold 1.6 million B20 tokens for a total amount of $576,000 in a public sale. The remaining 23% was allocated to partners of Metapurse.

The price of the B20 token rose by 89% in a flash surge this morning thanks to a whopping $70 million valuation during the Christie’s sale. B20 surged from $14.60 to $27.70 around 10 am EST.

Prices quickly fell, however, as owners booked profit. The B20 token was worth about $19.58 at 2:00 pm PST.

The total market capitalization of the token is now over $190 million, more than twice the amount that the entire set sold for.

Disclosure: The author held Bitcoin at the time of press.