Vignesh Sundaresan
Vignesh Sundaresan
Metakoven on why he bought Beeple NFT for $69 million
Vignesh Sundaresan (aka "MetaKovan") is an entrepreneur, coder, and angel investor in blockchain technology.[2] He is a professional programmer with expertise in open protocols, back-end programming, software product management, marketing performance mechanisms, knowledge organization, and data mining.[1][29]
In March 2021, Sundaresan bought the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) created by artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, for $69.3 million in an auction conducted by Christie's auction house.[32][33]
Career
Growing up, Vignesh dabbled in stocks and conventional financial instruments as a teenager.
He fell in love with the world of blockchain in 2013 as a student at Carleton University in Canada. He was so impressed by this new tool that he quit his job in Chennai as a technology consultant for The Hindu newspaper and started working on a cryptocurrency business idea.[31] He founded his first crypto startup Coins-e in 2013 and sold it to Casa Crypto in May 2014. In 2014, he built a prototype for Canada's first BTM (Bitcoin Teller Machine) and set it up first in Ottawa, Canada.[1]
Vignesh has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Dubai Campus, and a Master's degree in Technology innovation management from Carleton University.[29]
Vignesh's obsession grew into BitAccess, a Y Combinator-funded enterprise. As a Y-Combinator alumnus (Summer 2014), Vignesh co-founded BitAcces and in six months, he set up 100 Bitcoin ATMs in 18 countries.
He founded and conducted a successful token sale for the Lendroid, a protocol to support large volume token swaps, liquidity mining, and Non-Fungible Token (NFT)-based governance. Sundaresan also founded Portkey Technologies, a software technology provider. As an investor, he funded some big projects in crypto, including Ethereum, Polkadot, Dfinity, Flow, Tezos, and Decentraland.[34]
NFT Collecting
The buyer of the $69.3 mil digital art, on wealth building & what he's buying next
In March 2021, Sundaresan bought "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" NFT from Christie’s auction house for $69.3 million under his MetaKovan alias.[11] He told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he has no regrets paying $69 million for what many say is "simply a JPEG and a hyperlink." He said the rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) herald a new era where technology has allowed artists and collectors around the world to buy and sell art more easily and democratically. He said that while the art world has been the exclusive purview of wealthy, largely white Western collectors and artists for centuries, NFTs have allowed “artists in the Philippines, Thailand, or India now to make their first $1,000 or $500 on the internet.”
Shortly after the purchase, Sundaresan revealed his identity in a Substack blog post and announced a $500,000 fellowship for ‘crypto storytellers' funded by his crypto investment firm, Metapurse. The grant is to offer $100,000 to five storytellers - writers, producers, content makers, spread across 12 monthly stipends.[30]
"Everydays: the First 5000 Days" is a digital work of art created by Mike Winkelmann, professionally known as Beeple. The work is a collage of 5,000 digital images created by Winkelmann for his “Everyday” series.[14][15]