This is also now making waves in the art industry with digital pieces being sold for millions of pounds as NFTs. The artist Beeple’s Everydays – The First 5000 Days selling for an astronomical $69 million in March 2021. Bored Apes is the other side of the (crypto)coin where 10,000 NFTs of cartoon monkeys are being bought and sold for millions by the likes of Eminem and Justin Bieber.
“Bored Apes is such a small part of what's happening in this world. It grabbed so much attention which can be frustrating, but also part of the joy of it is that we're trying to educate people as well.
“I think for the NFT world, if we look at that in isolation, you've got these pictures and JPEGs of dogs and apes and heaven knows what. And then you've got truly fine art, of the likes sold at Digital Art Fair, which, if you've seen some of the work by Refik is truly spectacular and mesmerizing.
“Blockchain is being used not just to do the transaction, but also to validate and give provenance. It’s a central database that we can all look to that says 'so-and-so owns this'. By giving it provenance and saying ‘this is the actual one that is worth this much money’, you're tying an asset on a blockchain to a number.”
It certainly seems as though - whether being used to purchase a digital monkey or prove the origins of a part in a supply chain - the presence of these evolving digital technologies is going to grow far beyond the realm of the 'computer geeks'.