Digital technology has brought new trends to art trading! Artists can transform paintings, images, sounds, and different forms of creation into NFT to ensure the value and uniqueness of artworks.
London, UK (Merxwire) – At Christie’s auction on March 12, 2021, a crypto art, “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” was sold for $69.3 million, becoming the highest-priced creation in the NFT art market. This auction brought more popularity to American digital artist Beeple and made the world pay attention to NFT.
What is NFT? Non-Fungible Token is a blockchain technology, which is a relative concept to Fungible Token of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Each NFT artwork has a unique set of digital data, which can be traded and tracked, and serves as the buyer’s proof of rights so that the virtual artwork can also obtain transaction protection.
The characteristics of NFT are irreplaceable, inseparable, and anti-counterfeiting. Because of its uniqueness and indivisibility, NFT is considered suitable for related fields such as artworks, games, electronic deposits, and identity authentication. Through NFT technology, assets can be crypto and used to confirm identity, increasing the efficiency of transactions.
Why does NFT bring the trend of artistic creation and collection? After the artwork is converted into NFT, it is equivalent to “monetizing” the artwork on a transparent and reliable platform. Moreover, each NFT transaction will be permanently recorded, and buyers can verify the artwork’s authenticity. This function makes up for the long-term needs of the art market. It enables buyers to quickly identify the source and value of the art.
Let’s look at a practical example. In April 2011, a video called Nyan Cat was uploaded to YouTube. The content was a cartoon cat flying in the universe, with a rainbow appearing behind the cat and background music sung by a virtual singer. After the video was uploaded, it attracted a large number of viewers, ranking fifth in the number of YouTube views in 2011.
At first, Nyan Cat was just a video uploaded to YouTube. But when creator Chris Torres decided to convert Nyan Cat into crypto art through NFT, the public could bid for this creation! The transaction was hosted by the NFT auction platform “FOUNDATION” and was finally sold for 300 ether (approximately US$561,000).
NFT will become the main mode of art trading in the future? Although many people maintain a positive view of NFT, some people still believe that NFT may make virtual artworks a bubble. In any case, NFT has indeed brought convenience to the transaction of artworks and has given the identification function of artworks; NFT has created a new field for finance and also brought different trading modes to the art world.