Ethereum blockchain has gained popularity since its release by offering much more than a regular cryptocurrency. Although Bitcoin inspired the concept, which is the first cryptocurrency in the world, the founder of Ethereum had a different vision of the utility of this decentralized finance.
Of course, within the Ethereum blockchain, you can use its virtual currency for trading, receiving funds or paying someone. But that’s not all: the community offers guidance and support for newbies who want to create their own coins, Dapps or a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). Finally, the blockchain is the perfect environment for artists who wish to sell their digital art and become known in a world where the market is saturated with content. Let’s see the opportunities for being an artist using Ethereum’s features.
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Ethereum and art
Ethereum provides a safe and transparent place for selling anything, especially art. This is where NFTs took the world by storm, even if they were minted on Ethereum as far back as 2017. You may have heard about prominent NFT collections, like CryptoKitties or Bored Ape Yacht Club.
What’s special about NFT art is that every piece is unique, and it can be bought and sold with a digital certificate of ownership. Any NFT can have only one owner at a time, meaning that art can’t be copied, stolen or modified, which is not the case with traditional art. But while regular art is priced according to the amount of work and depth you’ve put into it, with NFTs, the value of the digital creations is determined by the ones buying or selling them.
This is not necessarily a problem because there are plenty of other advantages of creating NFT artwork:
- Artists have more freedom of expression. The digital art environment has no limits and no right or wrong ways to create. That’s why artists work in an unusual and controversial art style, receiving attention from the collectors and investors in NFT art.
- There’s no need for intermediaries. Digital artists create online groups and communities where they help each other without needing to contact third parties in order to sell their artworks.
- Blockchain platforms provide artists with transparency and mutual aid efforts.
Interested in the purchasing process? You can start by making some research on the Ethereum price, so you can start saving Eth for your next NFT artwork. Know that the price tends to fluctuate at times, so you need to keep an eye on the stats to examine the price change.
The $69.3 Million Beeple Sale
Beeple was one of the million artists selling their digital art, until he became one of the top most valuable artists. His real name is Mike Winkelmann, and his creation “Everydays- The first 5.000 days” has been sold through a major auction house ―Christie’s, for $6.6 million. This NFT is a collage represented by the numerous pieces of work of the author through the years, with crude sketches and political illustrations. But why is this art piece so valuable? First of all, the artist has already built himself a solid fan base. At the same time, he offers another original work every day and has been doing this for 14 years.
Secondly, the purchase was also facilitated by the auction house Christie’s, which is 255 years old and has sold one of the most famous paintings in history. What’s more interesting about this auction house is that they sell NFTs for ETH, but ETH was already the leading currency used to buy digital art and collectibles. The whole incident is seen as “the next chapter of art history, ” changing how art is sold and bought.
How to make and sell an NFT
If you’re interested in selling your art or want to become a digital artist, here’s a short guide on what you need to do. First, you need a digital wallet because most auction platforms will ask you to pay upfront for transforming your art into an NFT. Ether (ETH) is the most commonly accepted form of payment, so you could start by getting to know more about the Ethereum blockchain.
Then, after adding cryptocurrency to your wallet, you must connect it to an NFT platform with plenty to choose from. Upload your file and set up an auction for your NFT. This is where you need to be careful with choosing the right price because if it’s too low, the auction fees might swallow up your profit. You may want to select an NFT marketplace that offers gas-free minting, like OpenSea and Rarible. You can even choose energy-efficient blockchains with better carbon footprints, like Flow or Tezos.
What does the future look like for digital artists?
Digital art is already highly exchanged and demanded by collectors because it gives a sense of ownership, but most of all, because they can re-sell these pieces at better prices. But that’s not what makes NFTs important in the marketplace. Artists have more opportunities to create artwork that is not as expensive and time-consuming as traditional art but can still have a high value.
The future of digital art will allow regular people to own art. But this is strongly related to what art will mean to us in the future because now the way we see and interpret artwork has changed from the way we only talked about the vision of some of the most famous artists.
With the latest emerging technologies, we’ll see more and more innovative ways people create art. For example, we might witness a new artistic experience with VR technology (Virtual Reality). We could visit art galleries using only a VR set. Or, who knows, maybe one day we’ll be able to enter an artwork with the technologies that are to be created.
Wrapping up
The blockchain environment has offered people so much more than only a way to exchange cryptocurrencies, and one of those benefits is embedded in the way we see art. With the rise of NFTs and the Ethereum blockchain, artists are able to make art easier and sell it to people that give it value and a purpose. We can tell that the future of art is bright, and we’re looking forward to new technologies and artworks.
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.