Judge Ends Dispute Over Who Bought Beeple's Everydays

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Federal Court Settlement Clarifies Ownership Claims Around Beeple's“Everydays” as NFT Market Continues to Contract

A federal court settlement has drawn a bright line around who can publicly claim involvement in the purchase of Beeple's landmark NFT“Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” the work that became a symbol of the market's 2021 frenzy.

In January, J. Paul Oetken, a judge in the Southern District of New York, approved a final judgment by consent between Vignesh Sundaresan and Venkateswaran, a former independent contractor connected to Sundaresan's crypto and NFT ventures. The agreement, signed by both Sundaresan and Venkateswaran, restricts what Venkateswaran can say about the acquisition and how he can present himself online in relation to the entities involved.

Under the terms of the settlement, Venkateswaran is legally prohibited from claiming or suggesting that he was responsible for or involved in the purchase of“Everydays.” He is also barred from adding his name or likeness to websites or online profiles associated with Portkey, Metapurse, Metakovan, Sundaresan, or even Twobadour, the pseudonym he used while working as an independent contractor at Metapurse.

Earlier this month, Venkateswaran submitted a report to the court confirming that he had complied with the judgment. According to that filing, he unfollowed or left all Portkey social media profiles, paid an undisclosed amount to Sundaresan and Portkey, and attempted to persuade third-party websites to correct biographical information that connected him to the“Everydays” purchase.

The practical effect of the settlement is straightforward: it resolves lingering public confusion about who owns the work by foreclosing competing claims of participation. As framed by the outcome, Sundaresan is the owner of“Everydays.”

The timing is notable. The legal clarity arrives as the broader NFT ecosystem continues to shrink from its peak. In January, Nifty Gateway, once among the earliest and most visible NFT marketplaces, announced it would shut down. The retrenchment has also reached legacy auction houses: Christie's closed its digital art department last year, and Sotheby's reduced its Metaverse team in 2024.

Meanwhile, the secondary-market reality has grown increasingly stark. A 2023 report found that 95 percent of NFTs were worthless, and as lawsuits proceed against celebrities who promoted NFTs during the boom, the sense that values have continued to erode has only intensified.

In the art world,“Everydays” remains a touchstone - not only for what it represented at the height of speculative enthusiasm, but also for how quickly the infrastructure around digital collectibles can change. The settlement underscores a quieter phase of the NFT story: less about headline-making sales, more about accountability, attribution, and the paper trail that follows cultural and financial hype.

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