Madonna Unveils NFT Collaboration With Beeple 

A few weeks ago, it was reported that Madonna had paid over half a million dollars for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, adding her to the long list of celebrities who have gotten more into NFTs these days. Well, it seems the singer’s interest in NFTs has expanded beyond just buying them. 

Madonna has announced on May 9, 2022, the release of her very own NFTs, which feature three videos of her. This new NFT project is a collaboration between Madonna and the artist Beeple. 

Madonna in the Metaverse

Those who are familiar with NFTs might remember Beeple as the artist who set the record for the most expensive NFT of all time after his collage ‘Everydays: the First 5000 Days’ sold for a record $69 million. 

Now, he and Madonna have revealed a collaboration that is apparently a year in the making called “Mother of Creation”. The videos each feature a computed generated Madonna giving birth. According to Madonna herself, this is symbolic of not just motherhood but art itself. 

“We set out to create something that is absolutely and utterly connected to the idea of creation and motherhood. The opening of each video is essentially me giving birth. I’m doing what women have been doing since the beginning of time, which is giving birth. But on a more existential level, I’m giving birth to art, and creativity, and we would be lost without both,” she said.

The NFTs will go up for auction on May 11, 2022, on SuperRare. The proceeds from this sale will not be for-profit but will be given to three different charities; The Voices of Children Foundation, The City of Joy, and Black Mama’s Bail Out. In addition to this, a $100,000 donation will be made to each charity by MoonPay. 

It is quite interesting that this collaboration is not-for-profit. Beeple himself has said in the past that the next era of NFTs will be less about speculation and a rush for money but more about its utility. This can already be seen with various companies releasing NFTs that are not being given away for money or are not intended to be used as speculative assets. 

Instead, there does seem to be more awareness of what NFTs can do to raise money for good causes, connect communities, and be useful in other non-monetary ways. 

NFTs; the Next Great Charity Project?

These days, the charity scene is seeing a lot of NFTs. Whether they are being used to raise funds for Ukraine or any other good cause, NFTs have found some use outside being speculative assets. For most of NFTs’ existence in the public eye, this was the narrative that surrounds them but now we seem to be transitioning. 

This period in time has also seen some, including Beeple, predict that the NFT industry will begin exploring a more utilitarian aspect of digital assets. We can certainly see this with the Madonna collaboration and many more are likely to come.