https://amp.abc.net.au/article/13220228

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/fe2aad53-b6e2-4d29-9cc5-b20c9e96fe10/cbe346eee79d3e08dee5e8eb04284438

Consensual Hallucinations, an NFT by Western Sydney artist Serwah Attafuah, who said getting paid for JPEGs 'blows my mind'.

Paul "Lamborghini" Kell made the news in 2018 when he paid $US38,000 for a digital artwork that anyone could already view or download.

This week, he sold the same artwork — a depiction of Homer Simpson combined with internet meme Pepe the Frog — for $US320,000.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/b2f0b28b-c2f6-4687-b707-3759197f5270/879f885c30f6911347466c8cd170c7ce

The 'Homer Pepe' Peter Kell sold for US$320,000.

It's an example of the surging demand for digital artworks called NFTs, which are selling for thousands, even millions of dollars.

But why would anyone pay for online artwork they can already get for free?

The answer goes to the heart of this emerging digital economy, and opens up new avenues for artists to (finally) make more money for their work.

But first: what even are NFTs?

NFT stands for non-fungible token.

Fungible means exchangeable. A movie ticket is fungible — you can give it to anyone else to use.

A typical plane ticket, on the other hand, is non-fungible. You can't give it to a random person waiting at the airport after you've decided not to jump on your plane.

So NFTs are unique collectible tokens that are permanently tied to, for instance, digital artworks and music. They cannot be separated; the token is the art.

Though NFTs have been around for years, recently the market exploded.

An animated flying cat with a pop-tart body sold for almost $US600,000 in February. This was soon topped by a 10-second animated video of what appears to be Donald Trump collapsed on the ground in an urban park.

It sold for $US6 million.

Again, these are videos you can watch for free. Right now. Here's the Trump one: