A picture of the future
China DailyAn ink painting by Qi Baishi is rendered into a piece of NFT art and goes under the hammer in an auction on Dec 31 in Shanghai. CHINA DAILY When an auction on digital art was held on Dec 31 in Shanghai, the room was bustling with collectors, investors and crypto-savvy bidders ready to offer money to show their support for nonfungible tokens, cryptographic material on a blockchain. We wanted to introduce the future art to collectors," says Yu Xiaowei, manager of the modern and contemporary art department at Shanghai Jiahe auction company. It was the second time Shanghai Jiahe held an offline auction, featuring NFT art, a relatively new medium for the art world. In June, the auction house presented six pieces of NFT art for the first time and the number jumped to 87 at its December auction.