A sale of NFTs by Beeple, Mad Dog Jones, and other artists brought in $1.6 million at Christie’s last night, just surpassing the auction house’s expectations.
The 27-lot online sale, titled “Cartography of the Mind,” was a benefit for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit that promotes mental health research with MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and other controlled substances. Alternative-assets investor Ryan Zurrer curated the event’s appropriately trippy offerings, all of which were estimated to sell for less than $250,000, with most priced in the low five-figure range.
For those looking to the event as a bellwether for the NFT market in the wake of the recent cryptocurrency crash, the sale brought reason for tempered optimism—though the results ultimately paled in comparison to those seen during the heady days of the 2021 digital art gold rush.