Difference between revisions of "NFT Art"

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===CryptoPunks===
 
===CryptoPunks===
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[[File:CryptoP.jpg|200px|thumb|right|This image contains 6 of the original 10,000 CryptoPunks by "LarvaLabs", sold with an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain.. <ref>"Will Cryptocurrencies Be the Art Market's Next Big Thing?". The New York Times. 2019-04-16. Archived from the original on 2020-12-15. Retrieved 2021-01-08. </ref>]]
 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoPunks '''CryptoPunks'''] are another form of NFT created by developer ''LarvaLabs'' and is among the highest selling non-fungible tokens. CryptoPunks are unique collectible characters that are designed with a pixel art style and come with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The most expensive of the collection was sold at a record setting price of $7.6 M, which translates into 4200 ETH. <ref>"The most expensive NFT sales so far". one37pm.com. 22 March 2021. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 14 March 2021.</ref> They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet, however, because of the dramatic uptick in NFT popularity, the system was updated in order to begin taking sales. There are only 10,000 unique CryptoPunks 6039 males and 3840 females which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology. Each one was algorithmically generated through computer code and thus no two characters are exactly alike, but some traits are more rare than others. LarvaLabs has uploaded all the code directly to the blockchain, which means that they are no longer in control of the code and it can never be altered. This means that there will never be more than the original 10,000 CryptoPunks. <ref>MacColl, Margaux. "These Gen Z VCs are getting in on the NFT frenzy — here are the 4 NFTs they've collected so far". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-04-06.</ref>
 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoPunks '''CryptoPunks'''] are another form of NFT created by developer ''LarvaLabs'' and is among the highest selling non-fungible tokens. CryptoPunks are unique collectible characters that are designed with a pixel art style and come with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The most expensive of the collection was sold at a record setting price of $7.6 M, which translates into 4200 ETH. <ref>"The most expensive NFT sales so far". one37pm.com. 22 March 2021. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 14 March 2021.</ref> They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet, however, because of the dramatic uptick in NFT popularity, the system was updated in order to begin taking sales. There are only 10,000 unique CryptoPunks 6039 males and 3840 females which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology. Each one was algorithmically generated through computer code and thus no two characters are exactly alike, but some traits are more rare than others. LarvaLabs has uploaded all the code directly to the blockchain, which means that they are no longer in control of the code and it can never be altered. This means that there will never be more than the original 10,000 CryptoPunks. <ref>MacColl, Margaux. "These Gen Z VCs are getting in on the NFT frenzy — here are the 4 NFTs they've collected so far". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-04-06.</ref>
  

Revision as of 22:40, 20 April 2021

Examples of fungible & non-fungible objects in their physical & digital manifestation. [1]

NFT art is a subset of NFT's or non fungible token's. NFT's are unique, non-interchangeable datum that invoke the novel blockchain technology. Blockchain technology functions like a digital ledger, in which a digital asset, such as artwork or digital paintings, photography, logos, animations, cryptocurrencies, music, and even websites are placed on an ever expanding list of records called blocks.[2][3] This technology does not allow any alterations to blocks in the list making digit assets secure and verifiable in a feasible manner. NFT art, then is recorded, registered, and the owner is given proof of the transaction, not to be confused with copyright. [4] Non fungible tokens allow for digital art to be auctioned off and sold on digital marketplaces similar to how traditional art auctions function.[5] NFTs originally began as a way to trade unique tokens of virtual items such as pictures of cats using Ethereum’s, a type of cryptocurrency, auction feature. NFTs are often traded using Ethereum, which allows users to host auctions for both physical and virtual items using the ETH currency. [6] Artists can create digital art and then issue an NFT for it in a decentralized fashion, which operates on a computerized database. A buyer can purchase the art, such that they receive full property right that is similar to a deed. NFT's have created a new method for artists to distribute unique digital art such as trading cards, music, digital art, and internet memes. Due to its reliance on a blockchain, NFT’s have come under heavy scrutiny due to their massive environmental cost of crypto currency mining which consumes a lot of power. There have also been concerns about their security and the ethics of NFT ownership.


History of Auctioning Art

Prior to the creation of the NFT and NFT marketplaces, art was—and still is—sold in a physical setting. Global art sales generate anywhere from 60 to 70 billion dollars per year.[7] From this pool, 20% of the sales come from auctions.[7] The traditional way art gets into the market is when a collector or institution decides that they want to put their piece up for auction. Then, auction houses can work with the seller to host events to auction their piece. The top three auction companies sorted by payout are Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips, respectively.[8] Companies like these then have a team of experts who determine the authenticity and price of the piece. [7]

History and Conception of NFT's

Graphic of the present NFT ecosystem. [9]

Beginning in 2012, the issuance of “colored” Bitcoins on the Bitcoin blockchain can be argued as the first[10] real use of NFTs in the world of blockchain. While colored Bitcoin was not cryptographically secured as unique and therefore non-fungible, colored Bitcoin is instead a set of meta-data instructions and rules which groups of users could manipulate to enforce representation[11] of some non-bitcoin asset using an arbitrary store of Bitcoin. However, the weakness of Bitcoin’s scripting language led to these groups being very niche, as the price of these tokens had to be agreed upon by the members of the group. [11] Colored coins gave people an idea of the power of issuing assets on the blockchain, and with this recognition, Counterparty was born. Counterparty allowed users to buy and sell assets on the Counterparty decentralized exchange, all running atop a blockchain. [12]

On November 28th, 2017, an application on Ethereum known as CryptoKitties allowed users to buy and sell non-fungible tokens of cats. Some kitties were rarer than others, coming in a variety of costumes and fur types, ultimately creating a market for these non-fungible tokens and later creating a bubble with some of the original kitties selling for roughly $113,000.[13] Since 2018 and onwards, the use of NFT art has increased as part of the decentralized ecosystem. With the recognition of that importance came about a whole host of other projects seen in the figure to the right. [9]

Market Place

The logo for the Ethereum cryptocurrency [14]

Buying

There are many different websites one can use to buy NFT art. Some of the most used websites are Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, and OpenSea. [15] Art on these websites must be purchased with Ether, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain. Since NFTs are created on the Ethereum blockchain, ownership of each piece is now public information and is verifiable on the public ledger. [15]

Selling

NFT art is also sold by creators on these marketplaces. The creation of the art is entirely up to the artist. Artists can sell any form of art, with the sole requirement being that it is digital, whether that be a PNG, GIF, WEBP, MP4, or MP3. [16] Some websites function like traditional auction houses where there is a barrier to entry. On Nifty.com, artists must apply to have their work listed. If accepted, Nifty will take 5% + 30 cents of every secondary sale. [17] Whereas on rarible.com, anyone can instantly sell their artwork, making it more of an open market. [16] The artist has to decide how many issues of their art they want to mint. Additionally, artists can set what percentage of royalties they want on secondary sales of a piece. [16]

Notable Examples

Beeple's digital art piece (Everydays: The First 5000 Days) just sold for over $69 million. [18]

Beeple

As NFT art continues to become more popular, some of the major auction houses known for their sales of physical art are starting to sell digital art. Christie’s recently listed a piece of NFT art called Everydays: The First 5000 Days from the popular digital artist Mike Winkelmann, commonly known as Beeple [19]. The piece was the first NFT they had ever offered for sale and the first piece ever sold at a major auction house. A digital collage, the piece was a collection of 5000 pieces of digital art that Beeple posted online day-after-day for over thirteen years starting in 2007. [19] Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for over $69.3 million to Metakovan, a crypo-asset investor and the founder of Metapurse, a fund that collects NFTs. [20] The piece and Christie’s fees were all paid for entirely in Ether.

Beeple then created an encrypted digital animation, which was motivated by the 2020 presidential election entitled "Crossroad." This new NFT was a 10-second video showing computer generated cartoons walking past a naked and defeated Donald J. Trump, face first in grass, which sold for US$6.6 million at Nifty Gateway, an online cryptocurrency marketplace for digital art.[21] This piece was expected to be sold online, once again, through Christie’s. However, days before it could be put up, Nifty had sold it because the price had skyrocketed. Now, it is being resold at more than 1,000 percent of their original price.[22]

CryptoPunks

This image contains 6 of the original 10,000 CryptoPunks by "LarvaLabs", sold with an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain.. [23]

CryptoPunks are another form of NFT created by developer LarvaLabs and is among the highest selling non-fungible tokens. CryptoPunks are unique collectible characters that are designed with a pixel art style and come with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The most expensive of the collection was sold at a record setting price of $7.6 M, which translates into 4200 ETH. [24] They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet, however, because of the dramatic uptick in NFT popularity, the system was updated in order to begin taking sales. There are only 10,000 unique CryptoPunks 6039 males and 3840 females which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology. Each one was algorithmically generated through computer code and thus no two characters are exactly alike, but some traits are more rare than others. LarvaLabs has uploaded all the code directly to the blockchain, which means that they are no longer in control of the code and it can never be altered. This means that there will never be more than the original 10,000 CryptoPunks. [25]

The First Tweet

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey auctioned off his first tweet, also the first ever tweet on the platform, as an NFT. The tweet, which reads “just setting up my twttr,” was published on March 21, 2006, and is being sold on the digital platform Valuables. The platform allows people to buy and sell tweets autographed by their original creators. [26]

The highest bid was $2.5 million by Sina Estavi, CEO of Bridge Oracle. The auction closed on March 21, 2021, on the day of the fifteenth anniversary of the tweet. Dorsey has pledged that he will immediately convert all proceeds into the cryptocurrency bitcoin and donate it to Give Directly’s Africa Covid Response program. The final auction winner will receive a digital certificate of the tweet, and the tweet will remain on the Twitter platform for everyone to view. [27]

NFT of LeBron dunking sold for over $200,000. [28]

Music

Non fungible tokens have also been used to auction off and sell rights to music. The Weeknd hosted an NFT auction selling a collection of non fungible tokens related to his work and his brand.[29] An NFT token for one of his unreleased songs, dubbed as the “NFT song”, was auctioned off for nearly $490,000. In total, The Weeknd raised over 2 million dollars from his first NFT auction. [29]

The canadian artist Grimes has sold 6 million dollars worth of digital art packaged in the form of NFTs. [30] The NFT’s were auctioned off on Nifty Gateway on February 28th 2021, where one of the highest selling NFTs of her collection, “Death of the Old”, was sold for $389,000. [31]

American rapper Lil Pump also used NFT's to auction off virtual trading cards themed after himself to his fans. Over 2,000 NFT tokens of his trading cards were sold, each piece with a valuation of 10,000 dollars. [32]

Internet Pop Culture

Popular internet meme, “Nyan Cat”, was recently auctioned off as an NFT by the original creator Chris Torres. [33] The Nyan Cat gif was remastered and re-released by Torres for the purpose of auctioning it off on the NFT marketplace. It was sold through the Crypto Art Platform Foundation for 300ETH, which at the time was equivalent to roughly $454,000. [33]

Sports

A video clip of LeBron James dunking has been auctioned off as an NFT for roughly $200,000. [34] The clip was auctioned off by NBA topshot, a website which allows users to purchase the rights to certain video clips from the NBA. [34]

Impact of NFT Art on Artists

One reason NFT as an alternative form of art has been so successful is because of how potentially lucrative it is to (digital) artists. While many digital artists have created art garnering plenty of likes, comments, and shares, generating significant income from their work is much more difficult to do. NFT art has helped provide digital artists with a rare opportunity to earn thousands upon thousands of dollars selling their pieces on the market. [35] Aside from the monetary benefits of selling digital art, NFT art has also helped validate and empower artists, many of whom were previously struggling to to make ends meet. In particular, NFT art has helped reduce the importance of a middleman between artists and those buying their digital pieces. [36] Artists no longer have to deal with auction houses, galleries, etc. Furthermore, the introduction of NFTs in the art world has the potential to promote inclusivity. Museum collections have always been predominantly male. With NFT art, the biased channels of distributing art are removed and replaced with a digital marketplace providing a direct connection between the creator and buyer. [37]

Although NFT art evidently can be a very profitable opportunity for artists, there are still risks and downsides involved with creating and selling such art. In order to profit off of creating NFT art pieces, artists must first invest in cryptocurrency. [38] This serves as a barrier of entry, as one must have the initial funds to participate. Adding on, artists must have basic knowledge of the cryptocurrency world, which can be a burden. Furthermore, as is the case with any investment, there is no guarantee that profit will be made. Stories of success often overshadow the plethora of failed investments, which overly glorifies creating NFT art. In fact, the primary profiteers of the business are the hyper capitalists holding the most cryptocurrency. [38] Finally, as more artists decide to partake in creating NFT art, competition will only increase, making an already risky investment even riskier.

NFT's and Criminal Activity

Ever since the popularity of NFT’s gathered media attention, concerns surrounding NFT’s involvement in facilitating criminal activities grew more. On March 26 2021, TechCrunch, an online newspaper focusing on high-tech and startup companies, published an article highlighting the similarity between the rise in interest in NFT’s and the level of interest back in 2017 during the Initial Coin Offerings[39]. According to Connie Loizos of TechCrunch, the reason behind this popularity in the realm of NFT’s is the implementation of strict security protocols by the SEC. Loizos, however, as well as other experts, believe that NFT’s display a tremendous potential for abuse despite their traceable nature. According to Jesse Spiro, chief of government affairs at Chainalysis, the most likely threat posed by NFT’s is trade-based money laundering[40]. Trade-based money laundering is defined as the process of disguising illegal proceeds by moving them through trade transactions in an effort to legitimize them. According to Asaf Meir, CEO of Solidus Labs, the issue of money laundering in the world of art was already a huge issue, and the digital nature of NFT’s is making pricing more erratic[41]. While these concerns have been brought to public attention and some experts have called for regulation, the future of this industry as well as its involvement in criminal activities remains to be unclear at the moment.

Regulatory Attempts

As concerns regarding NFT’s security and its possible involvement in criminal activity are growing, a legal framework on how to regulate NFT’s is still yet to be determined. United States, the second largest market of cryptocurrencies and NFT’s with respect to volume, is one of the actors that is trying resolve this ambiguity regarding the categorization of NFT’s. According to Business Insider, Hester Peirce, one of the commissioners of the SEC, warned NFT issuers to be careful about the investment products they produce, as certain products are securities by nature and would require legal efforts as well as regulation[42]. In addition, Peirce also said that “Considering the creative approaches some issuers have been developing, people should be asking questions and be careful”. According to National Law Review, however, SEC’s broad definition of a security may not be applicable. In their March 25 article, National Law Review included The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s statement on NFT’s as a legal entity[43]. CFTC argues that due to its nature of being a interchangeable good or material that can be bought and sold freely, NFT’s should be recognized as “Commodities” and not securities. According to National Law Review, this would mean that NFT’s will be subject to CFTC’s anti-fraud and anti-manipulation regulatory framework in the future[44].

Ethical Implications

Energy use

One of the main ethical implications of NFT art is the amount of energy consumed in the creation process. NFT's exist on the Ethereum blockchain, and mining NFTs on the network requires servers, which consumes energy and produces carbon emissions. French artist Joanie Lemercier previously sold some of his work on Nifty Gateway and later found out that the sale of his work used 8.7 megawatt-hours of energy, equivalent to two years of energy use in his apartment. [45]As cases like Lemercier’s gathered media attention and public criticism, Ethereum blockchain, one of the largest crypto platforms, promised to shift its operations to a less energy-intensive method[46]. From smart-energy.com, “Renewables powers almost 40% of proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining”. [47] A large portion of crypto mining still relies on non-renewable energy. Yet, even if crypto was all renewable, cities like Missoula, Montana are stopping crypto mining, as they create more competition for renewable energy, and thus, pushing big energy users to rely on "dirtier," non-renewable sources.[45]

Security

As NFTs are digital art, anyone can copy art and sell it as their own. Recently, artist RJ Palmer had his artwork copied and sold as an NFT, as someone just downloaded pictures of his artwork and sold them as their own.[48] So if the artist puts out art on the internet for free, then anyone can claim it as their own. The artist needs to be the first to issue an NFT, producing more overhead for the creator. Supporters say that NFT art is safer than purchasing traditional art. Gregory Barber, a blockchain specialist from the University of Columbia, has said “with an NFT, the owner buys a verified token providing digital evidence that the art is theirs—a bit like an artist’s signature”. [45] So now you can verify all the past owners of a piece of art on the blockchain’s public domain. However, reports show that the blockchain is not entirely secure yet. A report from the MIT Technology Review said that nearly $2 billion dollars worth of cryptocurrencies have been hacked. [49] This poses a concern for collectors who fear that their ownership of their art may be at risk. Additionally, accounts containing art can be compromised in traditional ways, such as a password being stolen. Recent account breaches have occurred in which the marketplace Nifty Gateway was accessed by credential-stealing thieves. [50]

Artist control

Artists producing NFT art can set royalties for secondary sales of their original work. In the past, once ownership transferred, the artists no longer had rights over their art. Even after the artist dies, their family can receive commissions on their work. Vincent Van Gogh sold his first painting for 400 francs, and it was not until after he died that his paintings were worth millions.[51] Artists do not have to go through auction houses anymore to sell their artwork. This eliminates the chance of rejection before a piece is even available to the public, as auction houses like Christie’s do not have to accept the artist's art.[52] Additionally, artists can have the power to set the price of their art and not have it set by auction houses.

References

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