Back in 2018, at its first annual Art+Tech Summit, held to discuss the intersection of emerging technologies and art, Christie’s and a popular digital art marketplace SuperRare gifted each attendee with a unique tokenized frame of a digital artwork created by artist and programmer Robbie Barrat.

Turns out these tokens are now worth thousands of dollars. According to SuperRare, digital art tokenized on blockchain was a relatively new concept at the time, and NFTs — or non-fungible tokens — were not nearly as widespread as they are now. Barrat’s digital piece for the event, called AI Generated Nude Portrait #7,  was split into 300 distinct layers and attendees were told they could claim the art online using a special gift card.

“The team put the cards into the gift bags and explained the story around them to as many people as possible, but the concept of cryptoart was still so early, weird and new to the folks in the room that many of the attendees had no idea how special the gift would end up being down the line,” SuperRare’s Zack Yanger wrote in a blog post in September. “They literally had nuggets of digital gold in their gift bags.”

Fast forward one year later, one of the NFTs resold online for over $13,000 as online collectors became intrigued by the rare works. Another resold for $4,396. Barrat’s other works listed as NFTs have recently fetched over $100,000 at online auction.

It’s interesting to note that, according to Elliot Safra’s op-ed letter, one of the creators behind the Art+Tech Summit, only 12 out of 300 people claimed Barrat’s NFTs gifted to them at the summit. They didn’t realize the potential value of the NFTs at the time. The other 288 artworks can never be claimed, he said. “They are lost in an ‘internet museum’ — accessible for all to view, but for no one to own.”