Crypto Investor MetaKovan Announced as Buyer of $69.3M Beeple NFT

MetaKovan, the pseudonymous founder of non-fungible token (NFT) fund Metapurse, is the proud owner of the Beeple NFT auctioned by Christie's on Thursday for $69.3 million.

“When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat," MetaKovan said in a press release issued by the 255-year-old auction house.

MetaKovan paid for Beeple's "Everydays" in ether, Christie's confirmed, beating out Tron founder Justin Sun in a last-minute bid. The final sale price was 42,329.453 ETH. Appearing on CoinDesk TV earlier Friday, Beeple (aka Mike Winkelmann) said, “I probably will keep a percentage of [my earnings] in ether.”

The auction house said its website hosted around 22 million visitors for the final moments of bidding on the most expensive NFT ever sold.

Not much is known about the pseudonymous MetaKovan other than the association with the Metapurse NFT fund, the largest such fund in the world. Metapurse already owns a smattering of Beeple pieces that it has offered to the public in fractionalized form through B20 token sales.

The B20 token surged on the news, shooting up from $16.31 to $26.54 before settling back down to $19.73 as of press time.

Metapurse has previously commissioned virtual reality architecture group Voxel Architects to design virtual art museums in three digital worlds.