What In The Heck Is NFT or Crypto Art?

What is this crypto or NFT art exactly? Good question!

Just last week, digital artist Beeple set the art world on fire auctioning his crypto art collection for $3.5M in about 3 days!

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it for the past few months. Being somewhat of a traditional artist, it blows me away that people are paying so much money for something that’s not even physical.

From the research I’ve done, this is the best explanation I can give about crypto art at the moment:

Crypto art exists on the blockchain like the cryptocurrencies you hear about; Bitcoin and Ethereum being the most popular right now.

The blockchain is very complicated and full of technologies I don’t even understand, but it serves as a verification process that proves authenticity. So, each Bitcoin is verified by the blockchain and the same goes for crypto art.

When art is verified on the blockchain, it creates a non-fungible token (NFT). I kept seeing this term on Twitter and it looked like a foreign language or maybe even spam to me at first. But, like a standard crypto coin, there’s a unique coin and crypto code assigned to the art.

Artists are taking advantage of the situation and it’s almost like the Wild Wild West right now!

They’re creating amazing multimedia art pieces and signing their digital artworks using the blockchain to guarantee ownership, even though it’s not a physical object.

Once the art is verified, it is purchased using a digital wallet (like MetaMask) with cryptocurrency and only one person can own it.

Artists can also make a limited edition series of 10 (arbitrary number) where there are 10 identical copies of it on the market. These tend to be not as expensive as one-off pieces.

So, why not just make a copy of it yourself?

Think of it like this: You can take a picture of the Mona Lisa and look at it whenever you want. But, you don’t own it.

It’s not much different than that. People can still make copies of the art file, but it will not be authentic and digitally signed by the blockchain.

The art is bought and sold on several marketplace websites like SuperRare, MakersPlace, Rarible, NiftyGateway just to name a few. There are a lot of these marketplaces popping up and it will be interesting to see which sites prevail!

So, what do they do with the crypto art once they buy it? Another good question!

The art is stored in their digital wallet like cryptocurrency and they have complete ownership over it to do whatever they want.

It’s kind of like a video game, where you store your digital assets in a closet. If you have a special object or outfit you want your video game character to wear or use, you go and retrieve it from your storage.

Some people are creating online virtual galleries or have a digital picture frame that rotates on their television or other electronic devices.

Other people might like to just sit and look at the art with themselves. Heck, sometimes I do it. 😛

Crypto art is still hard for me to fathom, but there are a lot of interesting things happening because of it.

It’s allowing digital artists to sell their work and introduce scarcity and value.

I find this awesome and exciting! I have so many digital doodles sitting on my hard drive I’ve done over the years. All that work wasn’t a waste of time after all!

It’s bringing together communities of artists from all over the world.

Just in the short time I’ve been involved, I’ve already collaborated with an artist from Belgium and met a lot of other awesome people.

It’s helping reshape what art is perceived as.

This had to happen eventually. After all, it’s art!

So, I hope you found this somewhat helpful if you were unclear as to what crypto art is.

I’m by no means an expert and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to chime in below.

And of course, be sure to check out the crypto & NFT art I currently have available. 😛