You've probably heard the term "NFT" by now but what does it mean? What is it? And after quite a bit of research, I am still very confused but there are some basic things I can tell you about it and my tiny experience with it. I also have 2 Interviews with NFT artists coming out so they will be able to tell you WAY more about it but I thought It deserves a small intro so that you won't get too confused if you've never heard about it.
NFT stands for Non-fungible token. Non-fungible means basically that it is unique and can't be replaced with anything else. NFT's allow you to buy and sell ownership of unique digital items and also keep track of who owns them. Most NFT'S out there are part of the Ethereum (Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin) blockchain and they can basically be anything but right now the whole hype is about using it to sell art.
HERE IS MY NFT EXPERIENCE
I wanted to try out the whole NFT thing myself and well, I did and failed thanks to either my internet or maybe it was just a sign, not to do it in the end. I opened up OpenSea (https://www.opensea.io/) which is one of those platforms where you can buy, sell and auction these "digital collectables". This platform is just one of many, other ones are Rarible, Grime's choice, Nifty Gateway and lots more.
Now to be able to actually sell or buy anything on there you need a crypto wallet. I chose MetaMask for that which had quite good reviews and it is basically a safe Chrome extension for accessing Ethereum.
The next step is basically like any social media platform. After setting up your crypto wallet you go back to OpenSea and then Upload your artwork and list it.
BEFORE It actually goes live though you have to pay the gas fees which were around $180 in my case which is quite hefty.. but I wanted to try it out anyway and if I had sold something and made the money back then it would've been worth it.
I didn't make it that far.
Every time I tried to transfer money into the crypto wallet and buy these 0.06 Ethereum for ~$180 it just told me that it did not go through so after a total of 5 hours trying to get this to work, I gave up. I rage quit.
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN AFTER !!
Now, once the payment goes through and you basically paid the gas fees, your NFT is listed and you just sit there and wait. Of course, you have to promote it as you would for any other online Gallery that doesn't promote it for you and like with anything else, social media is a great way to do it.
People are making a LOT of money with NFT's at the moment and some people think it is quite ridiculous to buy something that's not a physical thing.
This NFT (Gucci Ghost) for example sold for $3,600 and the current owner of the NFT is now asking for ~$16.3k.
So from different perspectives, If you are a collector it can be a great investment where you buy something and hope the value goes up one day so you can sell it for a profit and from an artist perspective, it would just be another platform where you can sell your work. ALSO, NFT's have something you can enable to get paid a small percentage every time the NFT sells or changes hands.
Do I think that it is worth it, getting into the whole NFT thing? Sure. Is it a way to get rich very quickly? No. Yes, a lot of artists made a MASSIVE amount on their NFT's but also most of them were already quite successful and had a big following. With the rise of NFT's we've also got people like Paris Hilton and Logan Paul that are selling their NFT's through these platforms which push the artists a bit back into the shadow. This doesn't mean that you won't be making money at all. This just means that you shouldn't expect to make money without any extra work. I've heard from a lot of people that they were disappointed once they've actually listed their works and nothing happened but you have to promote it somewhere. Otherwise, your work will get lost like for example on Instagram if you only use some hashtags and don't do anything else. There are lucky ones of course, again comparable to Viral Instagram posts that get thousands of views but the key behind it all is work, time and patience.
A crypto art rendering of the Nyan Cat meme recently sold for about $US600,000. A unique version of the widely distributed image was made using blockchain.
Punk 2890 bought for 605 ETH ($761,888.57 USD)
MY PERSONAL REASON WHY I WON'T DO IT FOR A WHILE
As for me, after I researched more I decided it wouldn't work with my values and brand which is all about how we treat the planet, etc. Even though the opinions are quite split in that area, there is no denying that NFT's and generally Cryptocurrency are not the best for the environment but that would be a whole other blog topic. There are so many opinions, reports, researches and all of that jazz about the impact of NFT's. There are potential solutions in the works but until these get adapted I will stay away from NFT's.
Next week on Friday I will post my Interview with Steve Munro which will also be all about NFT's, his artwork and his opinions on some topics I already mentioned in this blog.
For more information about NFT’s check out this site
Comments