Bored apes and digital doggos: New NFT art gallery opens in Vegas

The walls are alive with mutant dogs and bored apes.

Digital monitors, more than 100 in all, line the room, gleaming with said images beneath circular lighting that looks like metallic halos.

Nearby stands one of two women in matching silver bodysuits and illuminated sunglasses, space-age embodiments of this space-age space.

The recently opened JRNY Gallery is the first facility of its kind in Vegas: an art gallery dedicated exclusively to NFTs.

(What’s an NFT? Here’s a quick primer.)

The 3,700-square foot, state-of-the art gallery doubles as a high-tech social club as well, with a gaming lounge and special NFT-related events for members.

The gallery was masterminded by crypto entrepreneur and expert Tony Spark, whose popular JRNY Crypto YouTube channel boasts over 600,000 subscribers and who also launched JRNY Club, an online NFT hub where users can collect and trade NFTs.

“I wanted to create something to help boost mass adoption and awareness for NFT’s,” explains Spark, tattooed forearms covered in almost as much art as the walls of his gallery. “I thought it would be cool to have a public place to come in and check out art on an actual physical monitor instead of just on the computer. It puts it in a different light.”

Video game origins

You could say this all began with warring elves, wizards, zombies and such — in a roundabout way.

Spark was an avid gamer growing up, and his time playing blockbuster online roleplaying game “World of Warcraft,” accruing in-game money upon completing quests, paved his way into the industry that he’s since become immersed in.

“That’s where I saw the first potential for cryptocurrency, and through that, I kind of got into cryptocurrency,” he explains of the gold coins collected in the aforementioned game. “That kind of branched out into making content for it. And that evolved into NFTs.”

Big on computers since he was a kid, Spark began his career building websites and doing online marketing in his native Southern California before moving to Vegas.

He first dipped his toes into crypto in 2015, then began making videos offering investing advice and commentary on the growing field in 2017.

He’d buy a Snoop Dogg NFT — his first — a few years later and then, shortly thereafter, get in early on the Bored Apes Yacht Club NFTs, which would soon explode in popularity, with some of the primate-themed NFTs fetching millions.

“I got lucky with the timing,” Spark says. “I had heard of Crypto Punks — those started blowing up from all these celebrities buying them. They were the first, like, big NFT collection ever. The price of those exploded at the beginning of 2021. After that, I was like, ‘I know I have to get into the next big one.’ ”

All aboard the roller coaster ride

The beanie-sporting monkey gazes at passersby with eyes hidden behind shades.

JRNY Club’s Bored Ape NFT is one of dozens of digital artworks featured here in the gallery.

There’s a striking image of a droopy-lidded man with a steak knife in his head from digital art collection DeGods; horned canines from the Doge Pound community; and works from Beeple, the digital artist who sold an NFT for $69 million in 2021.

Of course, the NFT market — and crypto in general — has been a volatile one.

For example, a Bored Ape NFT that pop star Justin Bieber bought for $1.3 million in January 2022 is currently worth around $60,000.

NFT trading volume fell 35 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to a report from the website Insidebitcoins.com.

Spark acknowledges the challenges of staying the course in an industry prone to wild swings in value.

“It’s difficult,” he says. “But you just have to have a goal in mind; you have to know why you’re in it.

“I’m always long term,” he continues. “I’m not in it to do a quick flip or anything. So, I just have a very long-term goal — I call it cost average. And that’s played out great for me.”

With JRNY Gallery, Spark says he’s not worried about the bottom line so much — “We’re not, like, looking to make money really from this,” he explains.

Instead, he intends for it to be a gateway into the wide-open world of digital art, a starting point for an industry just getting started.

“We’re just hoping to bring a lot of awareness to NFTs and digital art, crypto,” he notes. “We’re trying to get as many people as we can to learn about it, to get involved.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram