NFT: art and decentralised digital culture market
NFT DIGITAL ART - Digital conversion has been an ongoing phenomenon for several years now. However, it has increased since the Covid onset. The hours we spend in front of digital devices have risen, as well as the things we can see. Even art has made its entrance into the net, not only through Showrooms, digital galleries and museums, but also through actual digital works of art. The whole thing gave rise to a new form of market as well.
NFT and digital art phenomena
So-called NFT – “Non Fungible Tokens” are digital goods. They represent a wide range of unique, tangible and intangible items. They range from collectable sport cards to virtual real estate, including digital trainers but also and especially art! NFT key features are its non-interoperability, indivisibility, indestructibility and verifiability.
One of the main advantages of owning a digital collectable item, compared to a physical object, is that each NFT contains distinctive information. This information makes it different from any other NFT and easily verifiable. The creation and the circulation of fake collectable items is pointless, as each item can be traced back to its original issuer.
Other advantages of NFT – “Non Fungible Tokens”
n contrast to regular cryptocurrencies. NFT can’t be exchanged directly between them. This is because there are not identical NFT - even those that exist on the same platform, game or collection. Think of them as sort of festival tickets. Each of them contains specific information, including the name of the buyer, the date of the event and the place. This data makes it impossible for them to be exchanged.
Most of NFT were built by using one of the two standard tokens Ethereum (ERC-721 e ERC-1155). These models created by Ethereum allow software developers to easily deliver NFT. In addition, they guarantee their compatibility with the broader ecosystem, including trade and wallet services like MetaMask and MyEtherWallet. Other Blockchains are releasing their own standards in order to build and host NFT on their blockchain networks.
© Dapper Labs
NFT and Cripto Art records
NFT are entering the mainstream world of art, just look at what is going on around the world.
However, the big money in the NFT business has not only concerned digital artworks recently, but also digital equivalents of those trading cards that kids from 80s and 90s know too well. A recent DappRadar sector report, specialized in cryptocurrency analysis and usage, has found that the size of the market increased up to 342 million dollars in February 2021. This represents significantly more than the total of trade in 2020 (about 200 million dollars).
NFT and digital art markets
Currently the top three markets for NFT are NBA Top Shot, OpenSea and CryptoPunks. NBA Top Shot is a product by Dapper Labs, which earned fame some years ago with CryptoKitties, and digitalised the trend of basket trading cards. OpenSea owns digital works of art, as well as collectable items like CryptoKitties - and CryptoPunks by Larva Labs is known for its unique pixel characters, stored on Ethereum.
DappRadar put together a graph of which NFT have recently reached the highest prices. At the top there is Beeple, a now wildly popular artist, followed by several CryptoPunk NFT.
The meaning of crypto art today
Crypto art is the expression of our times, in which our daily living and activity are characterized by the integration of the physical dimension into the virtual one. In this context crypto art connects the creation of art to the digital interaction. This results in the creation of an inclusive artistic movement that reflects the spirit of the new generations that will shape the world of the future.
“Although it could be considered just a momentary trend, I believe that crypto art and NFT, similarly to blockchains and decentralisation, have come to stay. Artists, art houses and collectors now have a new asset class on which they can work, invest and diversify.
