The creation and sale of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, has become a revolution that is increasingly hard to ignore. On March 16, British-American auction firm Sotheby's announced that they besides would be inbound this burgeoning ecosystem with the auction of tokenized fine art by a creator known just every bit "Pak."

"We've been following the NFT infinite for some time and we're excited this morning to exist announcing an upcoming sale next calendar month with an creative person who is known as Pak," Charles Stewart, the CEO of Sotheby'southward, said on Tuesday during an interview with CNBC.

Pak's anonymity has led to some discourse over whether they are a single entity, or a collective of multiple artists all operating under a single mononym. A September 2020 article from The Command noted that Pak might even be an artificial intelligence program or bot. Whatever the case, the artist is no stranger to the digital art space, boasting "decades" of experience according to Stewart.

Though NFTs first appeared in 2017, they have gained significant traction in the cryptocurrency manufacture over the past yr. These tokens are provably unique, and therefore capable of representing individual items of tangible value. If two assets share fungibility, individuals can swap one for another, with no loss of allegiance. For example, making a copy of a document on your computer, produces an exact clone of that file'southward information downwardly to the byte. Both the original file and its copy would exist interchangeable one-to-one, and therefore fungible. In contrast, a nonfungibly saved piece of data is provably unique, and therefore rare. Nonfungible tokens provide each private asset with a traceable provenance, which acts similar to an shorthand or document of authenticity.

"It'south all the same very early, needless to say, with crypto fine art in full general," Stewart told CNBC when asked about the quantity of digital artists that Sotheby's volition host. "This is new for all of us," he said, adding "only there'due south a lot that'due south really exciting and we think has staying power."

Stewart explained Sotheby's decided to piece of work with a well-known figure for its countdown dive into the niche. This is what led them to Pak. "We're going to be selling both ane of one works of art [and] as well what are called open editions in the NFT world, where many people tin buy tokens for the same piece of work," he said, subsequently noting more than unspecified upcoming "surprises" in the weeks ahead.

"I do call up this is the start of something that you'll meet more than frequently," he explained. "This really has the potential to bypass a lot of the traditional gatekeepers and vetting processes of the physical art earth."

NFTs have popped upward in many headlines over the by few months, with some fine art pieces selling for tens of millions of dollars.