Architect Sells Rendered 3D House as $500,000 NFT

You can live in it — but only virtually.

Virtual Real Estate

Contemporary artist Krista Kim has sold a house for $500,000.

But it's not any house — the "Mars House" is a purely virtual piece of real estate and was sold for 288 ether, worth over half a million dollars, as a non-fungible token or NFT, CNBC reports.

Kim is hoping to take what NFTs can be to the next level with her Mars House, which is an immersive 3D experience rather than a simple JPG.

"Right now, a lot of the [NFT] art that’s currently available on platforms, it’s a very limited parameter of how you can present the art," Kim told CNBC on Wednesday. "It’s presented, basically, as a digital file, a beautiful drawing or video on your screen, but my intention was to look beyond that."

https://vimeo.com/416558553

Kim created the Mars House during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns.

"Mars House is the first iconic 'NFT digital home' for sale in history," Kim writes in a description of her work. "Mars House is a light sculpture, with LED substrate extending to the pool, throughout the entire perimeter of the house, for a uniform, fully integrated effect of my gradients in motion."

AR Lifestyle

"For me, I actually foresee that we will be living in an augmented reality lifestyle within a very short period," she told CNBC, saying that such a future is only "a couple years" away.

To Kim, people will be expressing themselves just like getting a tattoo through digital art. "Well, people are also going to express themselves with digital... assets and decorative pieces and collectibles, fashion, accessories."

READ MORE: Creator who sold NFT house for $500,000: We’ll be ‘living in an augmented reality lifestyle’ soon [CNBC]

More on NFTs: NFTs Have a Huge Persistence Problem