Beeple Everydays ownership ruling clarifies NFT credit

The landmark sale of beeple everydays has now been matched by a definitive legal ruling over who can claim credit for the record-breaking NFT purchase.

From record $69.3 million sale to identity revelations

When Beeple‘s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for a record $69.3 million at Christie’s in 2021, the winning bidder quickly stepped into the spotlight. The buyer was a Singapore-based crypto fund called Metapurse, founded by a figure using the pseudonym Metakovan, with apparent support from another pseudonymous partner, Twobadour.

By 2022, that partnership had fractured. Metakovan and Twobadour, whose real names are Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran respectively, formally split. Moreover, their separation soon escalated into a high-stakes legal dispute centered on who could claim involvement in the celebrated NFT acquisition.

The lawsuit over authorship of the purchase

In 2023, Sundaresan and his company Portkey Technologies filed suit against Venkateswaran. The complaint accused him of trademark infringement, injury to business reputation, and dilution, all tied to statements suggesting he had participated in the purchase of Everydays. However, Sundaresan insisted that Venkateswaran had no role in the decision or the transaction itself.

According to the filing, Venkateswaran was only an independent contractor for Metapurse at the time of the Christie’s auction. That said, Sundaresan argued that any public implication that his former colleague had been a co-buyer or central decision-maker misrepresented the facts and harmed both Portkey and Metapurse’s brand.

Court ruling: who can claim credit for Everydays

The conflict reached its legal conclusion in January, when J. Paul Oetken, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, approved a final judgment upon consent between the parties. The consent judgment, signed by both Sundaresan and Venkateswaran, set strict boundaries on how the historic NFT purchase can be described.

Under the agreement, Venkateswaran is legally barred from claiming or suggesting that he was responsible for, or involved in, the purchase of “Everydays: The First 5000 Days.” Moreover, he may not add his name or likeness to any websites or online profiles associated with Portkey, Metapurse, Metakovan, Sundaresan, or even his own former pseudonym, Twobadour, when used in connection with these entities.

This consent judgment effectively ends the long-running everydays ownership dispute. In the middle of the order, the court’s language confirms that any public narrative about the transaction must not attribute purchasing authority or involvement to Venkateswaran, keeping the focus on Sundaresan and Metapurse as the legitimate buyers of beeple everydays.

Compliance measures and financial settlement

Earlier this month, Venkateswaran submitted a report to the court confirming his compliance with the January decision. The filing detailed specific steps he has taken to align his public presence and past statements with the terms of the consent judgment.

Among these measures, he agreed to unfollow or leave all Portkey social media profiles and to pay an undisclosed sum to both Sundaresan and Portkey. Furthermore, he committed to requesting corrections from third-party websites that had linked him to the purchase of Everydays, asking them to revise biographical details implying any role in the 2021 acquisition.

For observers still uncertain about who can legitimately claim ownership of “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” following the split between Metakovan and Twobadour, the court’s outcome leaves little ambiguity. The judgment and subsequent compliance filings clearly confirm that the buyer is Vignesh Sundaresan, acting through his entities, with no shared purchasing credit granted to his former collaborator.

NFT market turmoil after the peak

While this legal saga over one iconic NFT draws to a close, the broader market around digital collectibles has deteriorated sharply. Also in January, Nifty Gateway, one of the earliest and most visible online NFT marketplaces, announced that it would close, underscoring the sector’s rapid reversal since 2021.

The cooling trend has been visible across the traditional art world’s experiments with digital assets. In 2023, Christie’s shut down its dedicated digital art department, a group that had helped bring early high-profile NFT auctions to market. Moreover, in 2024, Sotheby’s reduced its Metaverse team, signaling more cautious expectations for long-term demand.

These strategic retreats align with on-chain data showing how far the hype cycle has fallen. A 2023 report concluded that 95 percent of NFTs were effectively worthless. That said, as lawsuits continue against celebrities and influencers who promoted NFT projects during the speculative frenzy, many analysts believe that valuations have likely dropped even further since that assessment.

Against this backdrop of an NFT market collapse, the story of the $69.3 million Beeple sale now looks like both a symbol of peak exuberance and a case study in the legal and reputational risks that followed. However, at least one aspect of that era is now firmly settled: in the eyes of the law, the owner of “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” is Sundaresan, and no one else can legitimately claim a role in that historic purchase.

In summary, the consent judgment in New York has resolved the public dispute between Sundaresan and Venkateswaran, even as the wider NFT ecosystem contracts. The ruling clarifies ownership of one of the most famous digital artworks ever sold, while the market around it continues to reset after an extraordinary boom-and-bust cycle.