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DIGITAL ART REIMAGINED
If you’ve been living under a rock, then you’ll be really surprised to hear that we’ve birthed a whole new art form on the Ethereum blockchain called NFTs. 2021 is just different.
Non-fungible tokens have exploded onto the creative scene, with many artists of all mediums racing to claim a stake on the Ethereum blockchain. Last October, I met with a South African developer on possibly creating a Violet Summer token. Since then, NFTs have really exploded onto the scene in an amazing way.
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I minted a token to celebrate the beginning of our Crypto in the City newsletter.
I quietly minted my first NFT on Rarible in November of 2020. Since then, I’ve learned so much about the space and the endless opportunities it can represent for artists. For one, this is an entirely new medium for artists – one that only comes around once in a few lifetimes, like a comet. Artists will have the chance to own their intellectual and creative capital in full. Minting your first NFT may be daunting, but understanding why this is an important part of your business model moving forward is crucial.
As I type, Christie’s Auction house paid over $69M for a digital art piece called “The First 5000 days” by Beeple, a highly sought-after graphic designer. Yes, you read that right. The work is basically a collage of smaller images, meaning you have to zoom in super close to see the image in full scale. What Christie didn’t know was that some of these images are offensive to various ethnicities and races. Can art be racist? Of course it can. Should we give it a platform? That’s debatable to many people. The fact that Beeple became famous for his art on blockchain, a public ledger where anyone who has ETH can mint and trade, is a reflection of the whole idea of NFTs. Nevertheless, the NFT market is BOOMING! Digital-first artists are finally having a moment and a platform to display their art and get paid for it. This is only the beginning of how NFTs will evolve.
Read more in my column Crypto In The City Column:bhttps://cryptointhecity.substack.com/
