The reasons for the recent NFT boom were the rise in the value of the cryptocurrency, the appearance of the social network Clubhouse where users actively discussed NFT and indirectly increased its popularity, as well as the entry of celebrities and well-known artists in the art community. But the Clubhouse craze died down pretty quickly, and NFT doesn’t seem to be losing ground just yet. For the third quarter of 2021, NFT’s sales exceeded $2 billion, a 20-fold increase over the previous three months and a 131-fold increase over the third quarter of 2020.
Cryptocurrency has reached a new level and can now not only be used as a means of payment or a method of betting at 22bet.com.gh/line/Football/ but it can also be used as an art object.
The New Life of Digital Artists
What is NFT? Literally, the acronym stands for a non-fungible token, that is, a non-interchangeable token. Basically, NFT is the analog of securities. Buying an NFT token entitles a person to own a digital object on the Internet: a gif, a picture, a photograph, audio, or any other file they buy.
And the value of these objects ranges from mere pennies to tens of millions of dollars. For example, bidding for a collage “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” by digital artist Mike Winkelman, known by his creative pseudonym Beeple, started at hundreds of dollars and reached $69.35 million.
So far, digital artists have made money mostly with “commissioned” works and have rarely been considered real artists. In addition, their work was simply not available anywhere to sell. The emergence of NFT showed that they create real in-demand art and can earn it by making art.
Who and what Sells in NFT
Not only artists but also media personalities hit the Cryptoparty game. Most sell their own photos, photos of their pets, and digital canvases. But there are more interesting offers.
The Weeknd Musician sold the wrong song at the NFT auction for $ 2 million. The happy owner of the wrong token got a track, which will never be shown on any digital platform. DJ 3Lau went even further and sold a whole music album for 11.6 million dollars.
Large companies and media also did not remain aside. The newspaper “New York Times” sold a spawning column “Buy this column on the blockchain!” For 560,000 dollars. And the Saturday Night Live show took off the clip on this topic – he left the hammer for 360,000 dollars.
It wasn’t too long ago that digital shoes also appeared in NFT auctions. Three pairs of sneakers that resemble the Nike Air Force design sold for $3.1 million. Technically, 621 people bought the sneakers – NFT technology allows everyone to buy a small piece of the item. Recently, the digital shoe was also released by Gucci. A pair from this premium brand can be purchased for as little as $12, pennies compared to the prices of a physical model.
In NFT you can sell anything, and the seller can be anyone. For example, a 12-year-old boy named Benjamin Ahmed sold a series of unnecessary work with badges for 160,000 dollars. You can also purchase digital land plots. Their prices may be equal to the value of real land.
The strangest use of the NFT token was shown by Injective Protocol. It bought Banksy’s Morons (White) for $95,000 and burned it during a broadcast on Twitter. After that Injective Protocol tied a non-interchangeable token to a digital version of the destroyed painting. The painting now exists only in digital form.
Well, perhaps the most surprising item sold is a regular gray pixel. Crypto-artist under the pseudonym of Park sold this work for $ 1.36 million at an auction at Sotheby’s. For about an hour and a half, three collectors competed for it.
According to artist Pokras Lampas, the NFT market has not yet fully formed, and many of the works for sale are the result of speculation. Until there is a secondary market, it is very difficult to determine the real value of works in the primary market.
Where NFT Sells and Buys
There are several venues where artists can put their work in NFT for sale.
- Foundation – Curated by the artists themselves, they can also invite colleagues with the help of invites received after a successful sale on the site.
- Rarible – to put their work on the site costs the artist about $100, which not everyone can afford.
- OpenSea – the most democratic site, the user pays only for registration and may post an unlimited number of works. But because of this, the site is quite crowded – more than 13 million users.
Recently it was reported on the Internet that Instagram is developing and testing several new features, one of which is a service for selling, buying, and collecting NFT-tokens. Most likely, it will appear in a special tab. In late May, the head of the company, Adam Mosseri, confirmed that the platform was “exploring” the possibility of introducing a subscription and marketplace for NFT.
Despite much enthusiasm and excitement about the emergence of NFT, there are those who refuse to sell their work this way because it is not environmentally friendly. Back in 2017, eco-activists calculated that Ethereum mining consumes more electricity than some countries like Cyprus or Iceland. The creators of Ethereum, by the way, have been promising for years to switch to a greener way of working. So far, without success.
