Metaverse riding on NFT boom, says owner of $69 million digital artwork

Metakovan and Twobadour Panar, a.k.a Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran, the buyers of the $69 million NFT-backed artwork “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” by Beeple — have built a monument called “The Souk” in a virtual online world, Venkateswaran told ET. The duo’s NFT portfolio, which spans digital land, art, wearables, and names, is worth $189 million according to a valuation by Nonfungible.com.

Twobadour Panar (TP) spoke to Apoorva Mittal about the metaverse and what’s working so far and what’s not. Edited excerpts:

What is happening with the metaverse? Why is it blowing up?

The idea of the metaverse rode on the wave that NFTs sparked, at least since March and the big Beeple incident. But I think Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement had some major implications for this space as well.