The Digital Renaissance — The Joys and Woes of NFT Culture

“Every artist was first an amateur” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There has never been a better time to be an artist, the adoption of Blockchain has been revolutionary for artist’s ability to monetize their work in what has traditionally been a financially frugal career path. Aside from the select few ultra-successful, being an artist has historically proven to be an exceptionally difficult profession to monetize.

I remember walking around the Art Gallery on the top floor of St. Stephen’s Green Shopping Center in Dublin when I was a child. I stopped and gazed at a portrait of a woman that had a $2,000 price tag on it. I turned to my dad and said “Wow it must be great to be an artist” to which he blithely replied “most of them die starving”. It was a pretty jarring response but he rarely needed more than a few words to illustrate a point. Money is hard come by in art.

The Game Changer

It would appear that the invention of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) has drastically changed all that, with the economic outlook of regular artists looking very bright indeed. An NFT is a digital stamp of ownership, that has reinvigorated the process of art collecting and the use of Smart Contracts has meant that artists now get paid royalties for all subsequent resales of their art, from now until the end of time. If you don’t know what a smart contract is I suggest you look it up, but in a nutshell it’s programmable money that executes under certain conditions. In this case the condition is that when the NFT is bought or sold a certain percentage (usually 2–5%) of the sale is sent to the creator as a royalty.

The Renaissance took place between the 14th and 17th century in Europe. The period is renowned for the artistic, cultural and economic rebirth that took place following the Middle Ages. Today there is no doubt that what we are seeing is a second Renaissance. NFTs are nothing short of a cultural phenomenon and the Crypto Revolution has led to an obscene amount of money flowing into the art world. Investors and corporations alike are throwing money at what is undoubtedly the riskiest asset known to man/woman. Exciting times for artists and creators for sure, but every good thing that comes is accompanied by trouble.

Pandemonium

The Crypto Industry is being described as ‘Unregulated Madness’ and the ‘Wild West of Finance’. As a noob entering the space your journey is fraught with danger. Not only are you subject to stress and in some cases abject terror as you watch the fluctuations of your mercurial asset skyrocket and plummet relentlessly, but you must also deal with the endless number of malicious actors who are queuing up to steal your money. Whether its fraudulent projects, copycat websites or keystroke malware, very few people make it into the space unscathed. That’s not to say that noobs are the only ones getting swindled. Some of these scammers are so authentic looking even the most seasoned and tech savvy crypto nerds get stung from time to time.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all things crypto, I’m passionate about Blockchain and I believe that the technology can truly make a positive change in the world, but the space is dangerous. It’s also expensive, gas fees are astronomically high right now and if you want to interact with the Ethereum Blockchain you are going to have to pay. This combination of factors is certainly a barrier to mass adoption for artists and investors alike and it points to the fact that the industry itself has a lot of scope for improvement.

Utopia

It’s not all bad though the NFT community has blossomed into something special. A place where likeminded individuals can invest, network and share their art. Many of the threads are focused on Mental Health, mutual support and there is a genuine feeling of caring and comradery within individual communities, it’s quite profound. I myself have met and collaborated with artists in ways that never seemed possible before now. Much of the value of NFTs is based not on the art pieces themselves but on the community. Owning an NFT grants membership to a community that works together to promote and appreciate the value of the asset thereby generating wealth for its members.

And the revolution continues to gather pace from an adoption standpoint. At the start of the year, OpenSea the leading NFT Marketplace, was doing a trading volume of $ 70K per day. By end of August, this had reached $ 250 Million per day that’s a staggering 350,000% growth. The excitement surrounding the space is reminiscent of the early days of the internet and the Dot Com Bubble when investors threw money indiscriminately at any internet business that moved and we all know how that turned out.

If you’ve made money investing in NFTs and Crypto good for you. However, it may be a good idea to pause for a moment and look at the situation objectively. The chances are many of these projects won’t be around in a year’s time. In any case it’s important not to get too caught up in the Crypto Mania and exercise a degree of caution.

What’s your opinion on the Crypto Culture, does the good outweigh the bad?

Source: https://medium.com/@cryptocrunch/the-digital-renaissance-the-joys-and-woes-of-nft-culture-66c55866c50f?source=rss——cryptocurrency-5