Art prodigy collects $23,000 on cryptocurrency exchange

Chu (birth name: Pho Van An) started to auction his painting on August 6, with a minimum price of $5,000. One day later, it reached $22,899, a record price for a painting by a Vietnamese artist on a cryptocurrency marketplace.

"I will allocate all the money toward charitable work, and keep people updated," the artist said via Facebook, adding he was thrilled to have the painting sold on his birthday.

Last month, his online exhibition, "Pandemic Paintings", raised money for frontline Covid-19 workers in Ho Chi Minh City.

"The Lucky Apricot Blossoms" was sold fornearly $23,000. Photo courtesy of Xeo Chu.

Chu, 14, had a solo exhibition at Georges Berges Gallery in New York City in 2018. Georges Berges, owner of the gallery, is convinced Chu is a young version of Jackson Pollock, an American painter and major figure in the abstract expressionist movement of the 1940s and 50s.

Chu has sold a painting for over $150,000 and is famed for his charitable activities.

Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading various cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), units of data stored on a digital ledger called a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique.

In other words, NFTs transform digital works of art and other collectibles into one-of-a-kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade on the blockchain. A person can now buy a digital painting using cryptocurrency like Ethereum.

Previously, Vietnamese artists like Phong Luong and Tu Na had sold paintings on the platform, earning thousands of dollars.