Artist Ryan Maloney planned a conventional release for his latest project, a series of collector’s cards called Beastly Ballers, featuring cartoon creatures adorned with football gear. The illustrator based in New Canaan, Connecticut, would use a Chinese printer to pack the cards; then he would market them online and sell them for $ 4.99 for a pack of 10.
Instead, Maloney skipped the physical product all together. He listed the card images on the OpenSea online market as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the digital assets that are turning the art world around. Maloney followed the rise of technology and decided to give it a try.
He started accumulating bids after a day or two. A card, with the design of a yeti named Yeta wearing a helmet and protectors, sold for $ 85. In all, he accounted for more than $ 700 in sales on 14 cards. For a working artist, it is a significant acquisition, and more than he would have done if he followed the traditional path.
“Artists are always looking for ways to make money from their work,” says Maloney. “As soon as the word about cryptographic art spread, the gold rush really started.”
A piece by the artist Beeple being auctioned as an NFT at Christie’s.
Christie’s
The gold rush for NFTs – essentially cryptological certificates of authenticity – is well under way. On Thursday, Christie’s, the 255-year-old British auction house, will close the sale of its first exclusively digital art piece, a 5,000-piece composition created over the course of so many days by artist Beeple. The final price will certainly be surprising: at the time of writing, the bids were over $ 13 million. As Maloney’s story points out, however, the implications of NFTs spread far beyond the multimillion-dollar prices set at chic auction houses.
NFTs bring to digital art a unique or limited edition quality that has been lost in the world of Internet copy-paste and post-remail. Each work of art is associated with a proof of ownership that is registered on a blockchain, the distributed ledgers most commonly associated with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Authentications, which can be applied to images, videos, music and other digital files, designate the original. Copies and copies of copies can be abundant on the web. But only one person can claim the NFT behind it.
Technology is starting to reach every corner of art, entertainment and media. In sports, a clip of Lebron James ruining a counterattack was sold for $ 100,000 on Top Shot, the NBA market for the highlights. In music, Kings of Leon last week became the first band to announce the release of an NFT album, with three types of tokens that include special art and perks. Pop star Shawn Mendez last month announced a line of digital products in the form of NFTs. In the media world, the Associated Press is auctioning an NFT electoral map of the U.S. presidential race in 2020, which uses data published on the blockchain. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is even selling the first tweet on the platform as an NFT.
Proponents say that NFTs have the potential to revolutionize the way artists at all levels can sell and distribute their work. In turn, NFTs can change the way people interact and consume art in the digital age.
The potential is enormous, says Joe Saavedra, CEO of Infinite Objects, a company that makes frames for looped videos and other digital arts so that the works can be displayed in homes and museums. His company collaborated with Beeple on a previous NFT release, offering what he calls a “physical twin” board to display the NFT, with a QR code on the board that links to the token.
“In general, everyone will have to recognize how to navigate this space,” he says. “Art is the tip of the iceberg.”
‘A connection’
NFTs are powerful because they deal with issues deeply rooted in the digital world: ownership and compensation.
The Internet has grown in the place we now know because data could easily be replicated and user-generated content proliferated on the web. YouTubers and TikTok users have gained a lot of followers by distributing content, which is sometimes professionally produced and expensive to make. Napster brought the music industry to its knees because it destroyed the business model when artists and record labels never expected it. Facebook complaints are free, whether you like them or not.
Of course, you can support online creators by donating to your Patreon accounts. But NFTs provide another route of connection between the creator and the fan. “NFTs give digital artists the agency to sell their work with the guarantee of authenticity and rarity,” says Meghan Doyle, an expert in Christie’s postwar and contemporary department. “They are creating a new path to follow.”
In a way, NFTs restore a dynamic that has sustained the art world for centuries. An art collector can covet an original Basquiat – instead of an impression of a Basquiat – so that they can have the version the artist defended when creating it. An NFT buyer may feel closer to what the artist considered the “authentic” version, although it can be reproduced in an identical way. NFTs can also function as rare reprints, with only a finite amount of certified copies. You can listen to the Beatles’ White Album on Spotify, but having an original press can transport you back to the recording session.
“Humans give real meaning to the original,” says Coye Cheshire, a social psychologist at the University of Berkeley School of Information. “There is a connection. It connects them to a time and a place.”
NFTs are getting a lot of attention right now, but they are not new. The technology really took off in 2017, after the Ethereum blockchain introduced a new standard that supported unique tokens. That year, a Canadian studio called Dapper Labs created a game called CryptoKitties that allowed people to buy, sell and collect virtual cats. The game was a success and popularized the NFTs. In 2020, the value of the NFT market was estimated at $ 315 million, according to a report by Cointelegraph.
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Without gas
There are disadvantages for NFTs. Artists complain about the sometimes high fees that come with the use of technology.
The most popular blockchain for NFTs at the moment is Ethereum, and a “gas” fee is charged whenever a transaction is made on the network. The name comes from the cost of computing needed to process transactions on the blockchain – similar to the gas that powers a car to make it work. As the blockchain is decentralized, the price of gas fees is determined by several factors, including supply, demand and the value of Ethereum.
Gas rates occur at various points in the process. When artists enter a market, they are sometimes charged a single gas fee on their first list. Buyers also have to pay a fee when they buy a work.
“Suddenly, it becomes very difficult for new artists to come in and list a piece,” says Mateen Soudagar, an Australian investor who writes a blog about NFTs. This can also hurt the market. He says fees have skyrocketed to $ 200 or $ 300 in the past. “I won’t pay $ 200 for a piece of art that sells for $ 50.” To ease the burden on artists, some markets have introduced the creation of NFT without gas.
Soudagar has been involved with NFTs for years, first investing in virtual gaming grounds. He believes video games will be the next frontier for NFTs. The technology will give people the ability to buy exclusive items, he says, like rare old skins, or armor or weapons for avatars.
Maloney, the Connecticut illustrator, says he is willing to endure high gas rates if that means more of his work out there and helping NFTs to become more popular. He works with toy companies through the creative agency he founded, MediaLuv. He said he talked to customers interested in trying out NFTs.
“I feel that this is how we will trade all goods and services in the future,” says Maloney. “It’s almost too good to be true.”