NFT Art Marketplaces: What NFTs Are & Where To Buy Digital Art
Digital NFT artworks in appearance are no different from the non NFT digital artwork. The major difference lies in their ability to be authentic, unique and one-of-a-kind. No two digital NFT artworks can be same or duplicated. With advancement in blockchain and cryptocurrency coding tech, it is now possible to write contracts on public blockchain ledger that can verify the ownership, provenance of digital NFT artworks.
Read below to unravel the Jargon and frenzy around NFTs and blockchain.
What is an NFT? What does this abbreviation stands for?
NFTs are Non-fungible tokens
Non-fungibility means to describe the uniqueness of the digital collectible or product that can’t be replaced or exchanged with anything else. For example, one dollar bill is fungible- you can trade one for the other one dollar bill, same way you can trade one bitcoin for the other and that explains fungibility. In both the above scenarios you will have the exact same thing with same value, easily exchangeable.
Non fungible items, products or collectibles are unique and one-of-a-kind, these can’t be exchanged for the other. Here, we can take an example of famous renaissance masterpiece portrait of Monalisa, now this art is one of a kind and can be owned by a single entity at any given point in time, and provenance of the same can be verified. There can be many copies of the artwork but they are not original and hence, have no real value. This artwork is one-of-a-kind, unique and non-fungible.
Let’s put it this way, non-fungible token (NFTs) are digital blockchain tokens that represent ownership of unique items, whether digital or physical. These tokens can represent many kind of digital assets like music, videos, GIFs, games avatars, artwork, different kind of collectibles or any other digital or real world article, these assets are bought & sold online using crypto-assets such a Ether (currency of the Ethereum blockchain) on different NFT marketplaces. Some market places do accept dollars or some kind of fiat currency.
Who invented NFTs? Where do NFTs exist and how does the whole thing work?
First things first, digital artist Kevin McCoy and technology entrepreneur Anil Dash invented the first NFT token in 2014. The first digital NFT artwork is a pixelated octagon that changes its psychedelic colors and looks like a beyblade, not exactly though.
NFTs exists on distributed public blockchain ledger which record and validate transactions. The digital assets (music, GIF, artwork, digital games avatars, collectibles, etc.) do not exist on these blockchain ledgers, their digital proof of authentication and provenance do exist here, and are verifiable. NFTs allow the buyer to have the original item.
NFT tokens can’t be destroyed, deleted or duplicated and will always exist on its native platform like Ethereum blockchain. Elements from one blockchain can’t be transferred or moved to other platforms. Most prominent NFT minting platform is Ethereum blockchain, though other blockchains do support NFTs. Technology or coding language that is used for NFTs is quite similar to other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin etc.
Thing to keep in mind, cryptocurrencies are fungible and hence, can be traded for other cryptocurrency or fiat money. However, NFTs are non-fungible, each has a unique digital signature recorded on the blockchain ledger, this makes each NFT one of its kind, hence scarce and more valuable for being unique.
Why the heck do we need NFTs at the first place, and how relevant is the frenzy?
People with conventional mindset who are not so savvy with the digital art, media or technology fail to understand what we get from NFTs. What do we own? Why buy NFT assets at the first place? When one can simply right click and download any digital asset like JPEG, GIF or a music track multiple times without paying a penny, then why pay for it?
In this scenario, NFTs become all the more important for artists and buyers, these digital assets have digital identifiers or digital contract recorded on the Ethereum blockchain ledger that verifies the existence and ownership of the asset. Not only this, it records the provenance of the collectible, like 1st owners or subsequent owners, price at which the NFT artwork was sold each time, etc.
It’s easy and economical for artists to sell their authentic artwork on NFT marketplaces as they need not rely on reputed galleries and auction houses. Moreover, NFTs allow artists to program their royalty percentage from secondary sale of their artwork. Example, if an artist’s artwork or collectible is being sold second time at a price of $ 100k and his royalty is 10% which is, already recorded in the NFT blockchain ledger, he gets to earn 10k dollars from that secondary sale.
Buyers and collectors do get authentic collectibles that has been certified by way of NFTs at considerably low price as compared to some traditional auction houses. Collectors buy artworks that they think will add considerable value to their art portfolio, and acquisition of the said artwork provides them with pride of owning something unique, authentic and one-of-a-kind that they can brag about.
The more unique the art or collection the more valuable it is considered. Scarcity and authenticity is the key to million dollar NFT art auctions. NFT collectibles start at as low as 100 dollars and can go upto a few millions in value.
In the month of March 2021 the famous art auction house Christie’s auctioned off a digital collage of digital artist Beeple for nearly US$ 70 million, making him the third most valuable living artist in history.
We can’t say if the frenzy surrounding the NFTs is for real or just a fad that will fizzle out.
Some Of The Best NFT Art Marketplaces
OpenSea is widely known as the biggest NFT art marketplace. It has a variety of non-fungible tokens, including art, censorship-resistant domain names, virtual worlds, trading cards, sports, and collectibles. You can purchase, sell, and top digital assets like Axies, ENS names, CryptoKitties, Decentraland, and many more.
Creators and artists can make their own nft digital art on the blockchain by utilizing OpenSea’s item minting tool.
Foundation is designed to bring digital creators, crypto natives, and collectors together to push culture ahead. With spotlight is on digital art, Foundation calls itself the new creative economy.
In the first blog entry on their site in August 2020, they declared an open call for creators to explore different avenues regarding crypto and to play with the concept of value. They welcomed creators to “hack, subvert, and manipulate the value of creative work.”
For NFT exchanges on Foundation, the artist makes 10% on that secondary transaction, i.e., an artist receives 10% of the sales value any time a collector re-sells their work to another person.
KnownOrigin is an NFT art marketplace where you can find and gather exclusive and highly creative digital artwork. Each digital artwork on KnownOrigin is unique and highly remarkable. Creators can use this digital art marketplace to sell to collectors who value creativity and authenticity.
Creators can submit digital artwork as a jpg or Gif file to the KnownOrigin gallery, with all files on IPFS.
Portion is an online marketplace for artists and collectors who can use Blockchain technology to sell, invest and own art and collectibles. The platform Portion also boasts of the Artist Community, a global network of decentralized artists and creators.
Portion allows anyone to be a collector. You can easily manage your physical and digital collection in a single platform, making it easy to exchange crypto for art and other collectibles.
New Portion Tokens are distributed as artists create new NFTs, currently valued at 500 PRT each.
Async Art is an art movement built on the blockchain. Another amazing nft art website where you can create, collect, and trade programmable art. You can also buy “Masters” and “Layers.” A Master is a 1/1 edition art piece, while Layers are the components which contribute to make up the Master image. Layers have special abilities as decided by the artist. This means, when you make changes to the Layer, the Master image will reflect this regardless of it ownership. Artists are given the freedom to select the parameters of their art and have exclusive control over any aspect to individual collectors.
Since February 2020, around $6M of bid volume has been recorded on the platform and over $1.5M in artist sales so far. How cool is that?
These digital nft art marketplaces have extremely talented artists who are finally being recognised their creativity and brilliance. Check out the digital art to buy nft art on these marketplaces or feel free to register as an artist and exhibit your creativity. Blissful Plans Media also has an art collection you can purchase as NFT assets, these artworks focus on the current social environment we face and have a strong message.