The singer Grimes has made millions recently in an unusual way: by selling art and short videos as NFTs, also known as non-fungible tokens — and, she isn't the only one. NFTs represent the rights to a digital work of art or other media — and some people think they'll soon be more commonplace than bitcoin. In fact, NFTs are already growing ubiquitous: Infamous influencer Logan Paul has made millions off them; rapper Azealia Banks sold a 25-minute audio sex tape for the equivalent of $18,000; and, Kings of Leon will become the first band to release an album in the form of an NFT. In the latter case, with the purchase of the band's NFT, owners can access special perks like tickets to future concerts, exclusive audiovisual art, and more.
But let’s back up. What, exactly, are NFTs, what is the point of buying them, where can they be purchased, and why are we suddenly hearing about them so much? As stated above, NFTs are digital tokens representing a work of art or media. What they are not is cryptocurrency, because their value is not static or prone to only small fluctuations in value. Instead, NFTs' value can go up and down, depending on demand. In that way, buying an NFT is like buying an actual work of art: Demand dictates worth, and is subject to the whims of the market, no matter how extreme. (In this way, NFTs are also a little like stocks.) NFTs can be purchased through online marketplaces like OpenSea, which artists use to mint their work. Once minted, these works are published into tokens, and from there, buyers can either purchase the NFTs or bid on them with cryptocurrency. But, unlike purchasing a physical painting, say, when you buy an NFT, you are obtaining the rights to a digital asset, not the actual asset. To put it another way, one cryptoartist told me that this article could even be minted into an NFT; if someone bought it, they wouldn't be buying the literal article, but the digital asset of it. EXAMPLE Auction house Christie's brought the hammer down on a record-breaking piece of work yesterday: a non-fungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain that sold for $69.3 million. The work is by Mike Winklemann, or "Beeple," and is titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days. The hammer price, or the bid on which the auctioneer's gavel falls, was $60.25 million. The final price includes a so-called buyer's premium, or auction house fee, of $9.05 million. There are the people who simply don’t understand why an NFT by this artist named Beeple is sold for $69.3 million. But Zucker says that the people who are drawn to NFTs — for whatever reason — are touched by it in different ways. "As I see it, especially after the past year of the pandemic, we live increasingly in the digital world," Zucker says. "So it stands to reason that we are developing systems of value around the aesthetic and creative elements that populate that world." Sarah Zucker, who works across mediums and specializes in screen-based artwork, was excited about the possibility to edition and value her work the same way other, more “traditional” artists have always been able to. She minted her first NFT in 2019. “To have your work be viewed and discussed as something real and tangible has psychic and emotional benefits beyond the obvious life-changing aspect of being able to support yourself directly from your work,” .
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesCategories
All
Archives
April 2024
|