NFTs or non-fungible tokens make it possible to become the proud owner of entirely virtual works of art and digital objects of all kinds (digital drawing, digital painting, game characters, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) videos, music, images, tweets, etc.). But also to sell them on online marketplaces. A market that has exploded in recent months and some digital artworks have sold for thousands and thousands of dollars and others have sold for millions of dollars. But what exactly is crypto art?
A digital ownership certificate
A collage of digital images by digital artist Mike Winklemann, better known on the Internet as “Beeple” has created a work of NFT art, and titled it “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”, which sold at the traditional Christie’s auction house for a record $69.3 million.
Kevin Roose, tech writer for The New York Times, turned a post from his column into a digital image format, minted it in NFT and put it up for sale at an auction, and it was bought for $560,000.
Kevin McCoy also put up for sale the first NFT called “Quantum” , and it sold for $1.4 million at the traditional auction house Sotheby’s.
The National Basketball Association (NBA), launched its NFT site “NBA Top Shot” – which allows people to buy and sell NFT-based “highlights” and “moments” from North American professional basketball league and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) games packaged as digital trading cards.
Kings of Leon has become the first rock music band to offer limited edition versions of their latest album “When You See Yourself” in NFT form on the YellowHeart online marketplace.
For centuries collectors have been spending millions and millions of dollars on objects from the real world or art world such as title deeds to physical objects, physical paintings, fine art and other historical collectibles, with the advent of NFTs, many people wonder why people spend so much money on digital objects that can easily be downloaded and shared on the internet? Here is what you need to know about NFT art or crypto art.
NFT Explained
An NFT or non-fungible token is a crypto or digital asset that represents real-world objects and properties, such as art, video, photography, music, or image. NFTs are bought and sold in online markets, usually with the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) , and most NFTs are created or minted with the same blockchain technology as many cryptocurrencies.
Although they were boosted with the release of some NFT games such as Cryptokitties and digital collectibles such as Cryptopunks in 2017, NFTs are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy and sell digital artwork.
The non-fungible tokens are usually one of a kind, or at least part of a limited-edition or exclusive package, and have unique and exclusive codes or IDs. “NFTs” are designed to create value and consequently create digital scarcity of digital objects or files.
“Non-fungible” means that each NFT token is unique and cannot be exchanged with another NFT token, even if they are part of the same package or the same edition. For example, physical coins such as the dollar and euro and digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum or tickets are fungible assets and items. If you lose your bus ticket, you can buy another one ; it doesn’t matter if they give you the same ticket or another “, but an NFT artwork cannot be exchanged with another NFT artwork.
The NFT technology acts as a forgery-proof certificate of authenticity. An NFT token usually contains a lot of information about the digital object and its path, including the creation date, creator, new owner, bidding and transaction history – an NFT proves that we are in possession of the purely original artwork among the many digital copies and shares circulating on the web.
Most digital artworks are almost always infinite in supply. Theoretically, cutting off the supply in circulation should increase the value of a given asset or property, assuming it is in demand.
What is Crypto art NFT?
Crypto art is the latest way to buy, sell or trade digital collectible items, and encompasses art forms ranging from digital painting, digital drawing, digital art, GIF, music and more. Theoretically, any object that can have a monetary or financial value and can be stored using blockchain technology, can be sold as an NFT.
How does a non-fungible token (NFT) work?
NFTs are created or minted and stored on a blockchain, usually Ethereum, which is a public distributed digital ledger or decentralized digital database that records transactions. Yes, the same blockchain behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).
Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain, although other blockchains such as Flow (blockchain behind the NBA Top Shot platform) and WAX (blockchain behind CAPCOM’s Street Fighter cards collectible platform) support them as well.
An NFT can be created or “minted” from digital objects or any other digital file such as Art, digital drawing, digital painting, GIF, sports videos and highlights, metaverses, game items such as virtual weapons and avatars, collectibles, music, photographs, digital images, tweets, social media articles such as tweets, DeFi, text documents such as PDF, etc.
Is NFT good for artists?
NFT technology offers digital artists, graphic designers and content creators a unique opportunity to create unique digital works and a way to monetize their digital products. For example, artists or art creators no longer need to partner with or depend on art galleries, museums, art stores, or auction houses to display and sell their artwork. Instead, the art creator can sell it directly to the collector as a digital token on platforms such as Nifty Gateway, OpenSea, Rarible and SuperRare – an NFT allows art creators to keep a larger share of the profits after sales. In addition, artists can continue to make money after the first sale of their works, i.e. by programming retractable royalties from Ethereum smart contracts, but without writing any lines of programming code. This is a useful and unique feature, as artists usually share profits with a lot of middlemen during a transaction or trade of artworks, and probably do not receive future profits from underlying sales.
Why is NFT bad for artists?
It’s not that NFT is bad for artists, but every minting of artwork and cryptocurrency transactions requires more and more computing power to be performed. More computing power means that more energy resources are consumed, which are often powered by fossil fuels. The environmental impact around NFTs and blockchain, in particular Ethereum, has been a controversy in the cryptocurrency community.
The other less good side by some critics is that the NFT market has attracted a lot of spammers. They are simply creating NFTs of artists’ digital works without asking permission from the artist or the copyright owner. Others are simply creating bots to turn other users’ tweets into NFTs, i.e. without asking permission or at least notifying the owner of the content.
How do I start NFT art?
If you want to start your journey into the NFT space and create your own NFT collection, you will need to understand some tools and platforms to get started selling NFTs:
The first thing is to create and set up a digital wallet (MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet) – these are wallets that allow you to buy cryptocurrencies and store NFTs.
You will also need to buy Ether (ETH), or another cryptocurrency that your NFT provider or site accepts. You can buy Ethereum using a credit card, debit card, or any payment processor on cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Gemini, or Kraken. After creating a digital wallet or a crypto wallet and purchasing cryptocurrency, you will have to transfer it from the crypto exchange or platform to the wallet of your choice.
Metamask is the default wallet for most NFTs sites and blockchains apps, and it is completely free, all you need is to download the app for the system your Smartphone supports (Android or iOs), if you are using a browser like Google Chrome, you can use Metamask by installing an extension.
The other thing to keep in mind is that you should take transaction fees into consideration when researching cryptocurrency exchanges. For Ether (ETH) most crypto platforms charge at least a percentage of your balance when you buy ETH.
Where to sell NFT crypto art
After creating a digital wallet and buying ETH, you can choose at least one of these popular NFT marketplaces below:
1. OpenSea
Also called or known as the first and largest NFT provider. OpenSea NFT hosts a variety of NFTs such as digital rare and collectible items, trading cards, collectibles, games, music, image, Punks, sports, metaversos, etc.
As an artist, collector or buyer all you need is to create an account or log in with a Metamask wallet to browse the NFT collections and mint your own NFT.
Categories: digital art, music, video, image, photography, games, tweets, ENS domains, etc.
2. Rarible
Rarible is another popular open NFT marketplace that allows art creators, artists and content creators to create and sell NFTs from a wide range of items including DeFi, art, photography, music, punks, Metaversos, etc.
Categories: digital art, music, video image, photography, DeFi, Punks, etc
3. Foundation
Foundation is a marketplace for digital artworks, and for artists to upload their digital creations they need to receive “positive votes” from the community or an invitation from other creators already established on the site.
Here to mint your digital work you must buy “gas”, meaning you must pay the minting fees in ETH – which means that NFT artworks are very expensive.
category: digital artworks
Should you buy NFTs?
The non-fungible token or NFT market has not yet proven itself over time, which means that its future is still uncertain.
NFT is an emerging asset class, so if you intend to invest in NFTs, consider the risks as well. In other words, just like personal finance, stock markets, financial markets or stock exchanges, investing in NFTs is a personal decision.
If even though you do research, you understand the risks and you have money that you won’t miss, do it as a way to financially help an artist or content creator, or do it simply because you want to get rewards and discounts on merchandising or other products from a brand or company.
You shouldn’t consider NFTs as a short-term or long-term investment, because remember, even though we have markets that house millions of NFTs, the value of an NFT is based on what another collector is willing to pay for the fair price.
The NFTs market is also influenced by demand. Therefore, the demand for an NFT will drive its price and consequently raise its value, rather than fundamental indicators or analysis, technical or economic indicators, or even internal or external influences that normally influence the stock prices of a listed company
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