Metakovan: Ethereum is Reason I Bought the $69m NFT
He bought the Beeple artwork at a Christie's auction in 2021
Metakovan is a long-time crypto investor and YC entrepreneur based in Singapore
In this interview, he talks about why he spent $69m on an NFT at an auction
Buying NFTs has opened doors for Metakovan he never thought possible
He also feels Ethereum has been helped from the hype surrounding NFTs
Vignesh Sundaresan, who also goes by the name Metakovan, is a crypto investor and entrepreneur. He’s a YCombinator startup accelerator alumnus and is known for dropping $69 million at a Christie’s auction on Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days NFT in 2021.
I often get asked by people why the fuck someone would pay such an exorbitant amount of money for digital art on a blockchain. So I decided to just ask Metakovan himself.
This is a snippet of a lengthy interview I did with Metakovan. Reverie is going freemium. Paid subscribers in the upcoming weeks will get the whole Metakovan interview - complete with his thoughts on crypto’s future in the next few years. Sign up below to get updates when that’s going to happen in the next few weeks.
Daniel Cawrey: So I still don't understand. Like, the Beeple thing. Why did you pay such an extravagant sum of money for that?
Metakovan: Actually when an auction happens, you have no idea where this number is going to go. That's the thing. In my head, I was like, okay, this moment is going to be very interesting because even before this, I had the first photo collectible.
I had the first - like I was going for the first story. I wanted the first of everything. So, like, I'm over that now. I'm totally not doing that again.
But the thing is, that moment when it was on Christie's, it was the first time for an NFT to be released on Christie's. And also they accepted Ethereum.
If they did not accept Ethereum, I could not have paid for it because I cannot convert Ethereum into dollars and wire them that much money. There’d be so much difficulty because of banking and everything.
DC: Okay, yeah.
Metakovan: The auction - I didn’t know what price I was going to pay. I was thinking $20 million.
I spoke to Christie's and they were like we can give you a $25 million limit in your account. So I was like, this sucks because you don't limit what number I should pay. Right? And they said this is the number we can give you.
I was like, okay, so what's the maximum you're giving to anyone? Because then if you limit me at $20 million and there's a guy who’s limited at $30 million, he can just make a $21 million bid and then win, right?
So I felt like Christie's had this inside information. Because they were the ones setting the limits. And at that point they finally came back and gave me a $100 million limit on my account.
So there was a huge limit on my account. And then I went into the bidding. I knew how much money I can spend without getting fucked. So I felt like, you know, whatever happens, I should do this because this is the moment. And I still think it has made me so many interesting friends in the world.
It's nice. Everyone asks me this question. So this is maybe the thousandth time I'm answering this question.
DC: Well, I don't want to be asking you the same questions over and over again.
MK: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What I mean is, it's become such a… it has given me so much that's intangible that I don't want to put a value to it now because it's opening warm introductions into the world for me.
DC: You mean like a lot of people reach out to you now?
MK: Not just people. Like, it'll be the government. It'd be the museums, you know, libraries of the world. Artists who are, like traditional artists who - all those people who would not have cared - this is like a brown guy thing.
What I mean is if someone wants to work with me, the biggest problem they would have is whether I have money. Now, no one actually thinks about my situation like that. You know what I mean?
DC: Okay.
MK: People don't think I don't have money now. Which itself, it's a very hard thing to crack in this world because it opens up a different kind of door, you know?
DC: Yeah.
MK: It's like, because most conversations, I always felt like…
I should not say racism. But it's like when people look at me, they will just avoid some opportunities. Because, it's like being merciful, why should we bother him? Now it's not like that. It's nice.
It opens up such a nice experience and I don't know what I would do with so much money either. So if it helped NFTs, helped put crypto in these conversations… well, I think it's just giving back to Ethereum also.
DC: Maybe it's just my perception of it. But it felt like, after that, NFTs just exploded.
MK: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Because it's like if someone is willing to pay $69 million for this, you know, stupid shit, then maybe they'll pay $1,000, right? Like maybe they will pay $55,000 (for an NFT).
DC: So on the subject of stupid shit, I have to ask you, what do you think about Bored Apes?
MK: Bored Apes. Yeah. My fear about the world is it's like, there is this great invention, and then…
It's like the Internet has more cat pictures than anything else, right? So it's like that. But, it's a side of the world. I think there'll be hype and I don't know how long they can hold the hype.
DC: Right.
MK: But what people should realize is if you’re reading this now, this is also history. Today, I'm so thankful to everything crypto has given me.
If you’d like to learn more about Vignesh Sundaresan aka Metakovan, Reuters wrote a profile of him in November 2021.
Note: This interview was edited for clarity from its transcript.