Image: Infinity8

Sacha Jafri’s NFT Artwork titled ‘On the Wings of an Angel’ sold for nearly US$1 million in under a minute at amFAR’s annual Cannes Gala on Friday, 16 July. It broke the record to become the fastest-selling NFT.

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Sacha’s painting was transformed into an open edition NFT at the charity. Within 45 seconds, 1,500 open editions of the artwork amounting to US$884,760 were purchased by U.K. tech entrepreneur Scott Fletcher. The entire auction money of the painting is donated to the amFAR’s AIDS research programs.

Sacha’s ‘On the Wings of an Angel’ painting was inspired by his visits to refugee camps around the world. While his physical painting was sold to an anonymous buyer, the digital reproductions of his art piece were done in collaboration with Javed Fiyaz and his charity-focused NFT platform, Infinity8.

Image: Sacha Jafri

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Seeing how NFTs can build a bridge between fine art and digital art while ­­highlighting philanthropic causes, Sacha aims to create several more. Expect to see an online auction of further editions of ‘On the Wings of an Angel’ on Infinity8, and Sacha’s series of NFT’s called 99 “crypto angels,” each for different charities. Sacha hopes that the auction money garnered from the sale of these NFTs will be distributed to charitable causes.

NFTs have been shaking up the art world and their impact on the art scene is here to stay. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, provide blockchain-backed “proof of ownership” on an item that the token is attached to. When that artwork is sold, the blockchain will record that new ownership and also serve as a certificate of authenticity. This guarantees sole ownership in perpetuity and ensures that any copy of that art will not be “re-sold” as a fake because the blockchain is fixed and to date, unhackable.

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