An art expert’s traditional perception of valuable, rare, and irreplaceable art is that of a static, offline object that can be touched, physically moved, and stored. With this definition dominating the industry for many centuries, online art escapes easy classification and faces varying degrees of acceptance.

On the one hand, it is produced with the help of software and digital tools, so its originality and value can seem dubious. On the other hand, recent AI artwork sales at Christie’s and The Merge, a large-scale NFT art piece by the anonymous digital artist Pak, point to the growing acceptance of online artwork and global investors’ readiness to pay for it. Christie’s sold Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69.3 million in 2021, demonstrating that purely digital art could achieve major auction results.

What’s the Problem with Online Art?

The main challenge that digital art faces is that of authorship and market valuation. If the work has no physical original, then what exactly is being valued? A classic industry formula is a unique object, documented provenance, and an institution willing to pay for both. Online artwork is devoid of the first element but can reinforce the second one through code and blockchain records.

Since digital objects can be copied infinitely without a loss of quality, an artwork’s uniqueness is asserted rather than observed, with a token, edition number, or blockchain record helping certify authenticity and ownership. Revisited in the 21st century, the artwork’s value stops being the property of one physical thing and becomes the property of a record about it.

Record-Breaking Art Sales

No matter what critics think about the place and value of online art in the broader art industry, the market has shown a willingness to accept it. Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days was sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s in March 2021, signaling the peak of the NFT market boom.

Another audacious sale was Pak’s The Merge, which generated $91.8 million in December 2021. Its uniqueness lies not only in the final price but also in the fractional ownership principle made possible by digital art. The work was acquired through 312,686 units of “mass” purchased by 28,983 collectors, creating a shared ownership model unlike that of a traditional single-owner artwork.

Renegotiation of the Authorship Concept

As artwork’s value has migrated from object to record, authorship is also undergoing a major change. Experts observe a shift in authorship from a concrete person to a system. One illustrative case is Sotheby’s 2024 sale of A.I. God: Portrait of Alan Turing, created by the humanoid robot Ai-Da. The work sold for $1.08 million, challenging conventional ideas about who—or what—can be considered an artist.

Another case is Botto, a decentralized AI artist whose works generated more than $4 million in sales by late 2024. Botto’s output is shaped not only by AI but also by a community that votes on which works should be minted and sold.

As online art continues to evolve, it still faces many legal, ethical, and IP challenges. Yet, the trajectory is clear: the art world increasingly accepts digital creation as a legitimate form of artistic expression.