The intersection of digital art and gaming takes center stage as Beeple Studios hosts SELECT START, a landmark event that drew artists, gamers, and NFT enthusiasts to Charleston, North Carolina for a night celebrating the evolving relationship between two creative mediums that have shaped modern digital culture.
TL;DR
- Beeple Studios hosts SELECT START, a free event celebrating the intersection of art and gaming on March 29, 2025
- The event features live video game tournaments, art competitions, blockchain art exhibitions, and a live Everydays creation
- Beeple creates his latest Everydays piece live at the event, continuing an 18-year daily art tradition
- Panini America NFTs surge over 1,200% in daily trading volume, showing pockets of life in the NFT collectibles market
- The event highlights how gaming aesthetics and tools have profoundly influenced digital art and NFT creation
A Night Where Art Meets Play
SELECT START, named after the iconic two-player button on classic gaming consoles, transformed Beeple Studios into an immersive playground for the digital art community. The 50,000-square-foot venue, which has become hallowed ground in both the digital art and NFT worlds since its opening in March 2023, hosted game tournaments, art competitions, and exhibitions that blurred the boundaries between interactive entertainment and visual art.
Beeple Studios described the event as “a night celebrating the intersection of art and gaming,” noting that “video games have had a profound impact on digital art from the aesthetics to the tools and workflows.” The event aimed to explore all the ways these two mediums have influenced each other, from pixel art aesthetics inspiring generative collections to game engines becoming tools for digital sculptors.
The Everydays Tradition Continues
In signature Beeple fashion, the artist created the latest piece in his renowned Everydays series live at the event. The Everydays project, which began in May 2007, represents one of the longest-running daily art commitments in digital history. Each day, Beeple creates and publishes a new digital artwork, a discipline that has produced over 6,500 consecutive pieces and helped establish him as one of the most influential digital artists alive.
The live creation of an Everydays piece has become a hallmark of Beeple Studios events. Previous gatherings, including PepeFest 2024 and the U.S. election night watch party, featured similar live art sessions that give attendees a rare glimpse into the creative process of an artist whose work has sold for tens of millions at auction.
Gaming Culture Meets Blockchain Art
The SELECT START event featured an immersive live video game tournament alongside blockchain art exhibitions and community art showcases. Attendees participated in art competitions and explored game-themed digital art installations that demonstrated how gaming culture continues to shape the visual language of NFTs and digital collectibles.
The connection between gaming and NFTs runs deeper than surface-level aesthetics. Many of the most successful NFT projects draw direct inspiration from gaming culture — from pixel art characters and loot-based rarity systems to the concept of collectible avatars that function as digital identities. Events like SELECT START formalize this relationship, creating spaces where both communities can collaborate and cross-pollinate ideas.
Panini America Shows NFT Collectibles Still Have Pulse
While the broader NFT market has experienced significant contraction, the SELECT START event coincided with a remarkable surge in NFT collectible trading. Panini America, the legendary sports card manufacturer, saw its NFT collection skyrocket with a reported 1,200% increase in daily trading sales volume, surpassing $1 million in 24-hour trading activity.
The Panini surge demonstrates that while speculative NFT art trading has cooled dramatically, the collectibles segment — particularly items tied to established brands and sports franchises — retains genuine consumer interest. Panini’s strategy of leveraging decades of brand recognition and applying it to blockchain-verified digital cards has proven more sustainable than many purely speculative NFT projects.
This contrast between the declining art-NFT market and the resilient collectibles segment offers an important signal for where digital ownership might find lasting traction. Utility, brand recognition, and genuine collector demand appear to be the ingredients that separate surviving NFT use cases from those that have faded.
The Beeple Studios Effect
Since its opening two years ago, Beeple Studios has become more than just an event space. It functions as a cultural hub for the digital art community, hosting events that bring together artists, collectors, developers, and enthusiasts in ways that online platforms cannot replicate. The venue has hosted everything from meme celebrations to political watch parties, each event anchored by Beeple’s commitment to live art creation and community engagement.
The free admission model for events like SELECT START is particularly noteworthy. By removing financial barriers, Beeple Studios ensures that its events remain accessible to the broader community rather than becoming exclusive gatherings for wealthy collectors. This approach has helped maintain grassroots enthusiasm for digital art even as the speculative market has cooled.
Looking Ahead
As Bitcoin stabilizes around $82,597 and Ethereum trades at $1,827, the crypto market’s relative calm provides an interesting backdrop for the creative experimentation happening at events like SELECT START. The most transformative applications of blockchain technology in art may emerge not during periods of speculative frenzy, but in moments like this — when creators focus on craft, community, and genuine innovation rather than market manipulation.
The gaming-art intersection explored at SELECT START points toward a future where digital ownership, interactive entertainment, and creative expression converge. Whether through blockchain gaming, digital fashion, or hybrid experiences that defy easy categorization, the relationship between art and gaming continues to evolve in ways that could reshape how we think about digital creativity.
Why This Matters
SELECT START represents a pivotal moment for the NFT and digital art community. At a time when headlines focus on market decline and platform closures like LG’s Art Lab shutdown, events like this remind us that the creative energy behind digital art remains vibrant and forward-looking. Beeple’s commitment to community building, accessible events, and live art creation offers a blueprint for how the NFT space can evolve beyond speculation toward genuine cultural contribution. The Panini America trading surge alongside the event also suggests that the NFT market is not dying — it is maturing, segmenting, and finding its true value propositions. For anyone tracking the future of digital ownership, the signals coming from Charleston are worth watching closely.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The NFT and cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile, and readers should conduct their own research before making any investment decisions.
Panini 1200% volume spike proves the NFT thesis was always about existing collector bases. sports cards had 100 years of demand before crypto existed
Bear markets are for building — and builders are delivering
Panini jumping 1200% while every PFP collection bled out tells you sports IP is the only thing with real collector demand in NFTs
18 years of daily art and still doing it live at a free event. beeple could charge anything and gives it away instead
The best projects are the ones quietly shipping during bear markets
Mass adoption is happening incrementally — people just don’t notice
panini doing 1200% volume at the same time as PFP collections were down 90% tells you everything about where digital collectibles are going. sports IP actually has fans who want to own things
nft_graveyard_ sports IP actually having fans who want to own things vs PFP collections held by speculators is the whole thesis. panini already had the collector base
gallery_rat_ sports IP having actual fans vs PFP collections held by speculators is the entire thesis. panini already had the audience, NFTs just added liquidity
Interesting perspective — I hadn’t considered that angle before
the panini america NFTs surging 1200% during this event is wild. gaming and NFTs still have juice when the execution is right
Tyler M. panini doing 1200% volume at a physical gaming event is the crossover thesis playing out in real time. sports cards already had the collector base, NFTs just added liquidity
panini doing 1200% volume at a free charleston event while blue chip NFTs bleed. sports cards were always the better on-ramp
free event, 50k sq ft venue, live everydays creation. beeple gets what community building actually looks like
50k sq ft for a free event in charleston is unreal. beeple could have charged $200 a head easy
50,000 sq ft venue for a free event mixing tournaments and live art is genuinely impressive. beeple putting his money where the culture is
Panini America NFTs surging 1,200 percent in one day is wild. sports cards going digital was always inevitable but nobody expected those volume numbers
18 years of daily art and beeple is still doing live Everydays at a free event in charleston. dude could charge anything and he gives it away. thats actual community building not VC theater
Cleveland B. the fact that he still does Everydays live after the 69M Christie sale says more about beeple than any interview could. dude just loves making stuff
Mira Ostendorf the 69M Christie sale could have been the end and beeple just kept going. most artists peak and fade, dude treats the Everydays like breathing
Cleveland J. the 69M Christie sale could have been the peak and beeple just kept going. most NFT artists from 2021 are gone and dude is running a 50k sq ft studio doing live art for free
charleston_local_ 50k sq ft venue and beeple still does EveryDays for free. dude treats art like oxygen. 18 years without missing a day is the real headline not the Panelli spike
an 18 year daily art streak created live at the event. say what you want about NFTs but beeple committing to that kind of discipline is unreal
was at the event. 50k sq ft and beeple painting live next to smash tournaments. the man treats EveryDays like a religion. 18 years without missing a day is the actual headline
panini jumping 1200% while every pixel art collection bled out confirms what collectors always knew. sports cards have 100 years of demand, PFPs had 18 months of hype
Panini NFTs surging 1200% at a physical event is the crossover nobody predicted. sports collectibles might save NFTs from the art graveyard
Panini 1200% volume spike proves the NFT thesis was always about existing collector bases not art world crossover. sports cards already had the audience