5000. The NFTs Craze

update: And BOOOOOM……$69 million. This was the final price at Christie’s auction, making Beeple the third most expensive living artist! And with that price, one thing is sure: digital art is here to stay for a long time!

Digital Image sold for….  Well, we will see how much… But, the day when the first digital art piece is sold at Christie’s will be remembered.  “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” by Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple will be sold – the auction starts on Feb. 25 and ends March 11. The artwork is a digital collage of 5000 futuristic images that the artist made — one image every single day for 5,000 days — starting on May 1, 2007

Digital art, Crypto Art are not anew phenomenon in the Art community and have a history since the 60s, but they were considered marginal. A digital-anything can be copied, duplicated easily, so nobody attached too much value to it. Being able to be copied, printed, and reprinted more times, means it lacks scarcity, so not attractive to collectors. And, on top, it is hard to check its provenience. 

So, why is this all changing now?
Is it again “the pandemic”?
No! But it is something called NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and the blockchain technology that allows both collectors and artists alike to verify the rightful owner and authenticity of digital artworks NFTs-based works of art.
As such, the Artworks can be delivered from the artist to the buyer (any intermediary can be cut out) accompanied by a unique NFT encrypted with the artist’s unforgeable signature and uniquely identified on the blockchain.
As a consequence, Collectors can know for sure they own the original (just in the case of a physical object).

But, maybe this is just another cool-thing that will die soon?
Our prediction is that: this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship_{(for the moment)} between this tech magic and digital collectibles.

Just to recap: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are cryptographic tokens that prove authenticity, ownership, and scarcity of digital assets. As our life moves more and more online and we want to own digital assets (think for example at the entire Direct-to-Avatar market), this tech unlocks endless possibilities for the digital economy.

Cryptokittes-mania. Launched in 2017, Cryptokittes put the blockchain on fire – they were cute, sellable, and made $30 million worth of secondary market transactions. Another famous kitty is: Nyan Cat, created by Chris Torres, sold for $561,000 on the Foundation platform.  (more info about transaction on Artnet )

And startups such as Dapper that started on the market of sport digital collectibles, are expanding they portfolios. (acc.to newsbitcoin)
They partnered with Warner Music Group to launch a limited edition Cryptokittes with the English music band Muse , and set up a a collaboration with Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
And fashion has joined the NFTs-party as well. DIGITALAX is the first dedicated Digital-Only Fashion Auction Exchange Platform, enabling digital self expression – you want to feel good in your own digital persona, right?

As the digital collectibles market grows, platforms rise with them – so let’s see the main ones.
According to Cooper Turley from DeFiRate today there are about 50 different platforms for creating NFT.

We selected for you the most popular and innovative platforms ^{for the moment}:

1.MakersPlace
MakersPlace is the premier rare digital art marketplace. Collectors discover and collect unique and authentic digital artworks by the world’s leading digital creators. MakersPlace is a marketplace and community to discover and collect rare digital art — digital artworks where its authenticity, rarity and proof of ownership is guaranteed by blockchain technology.
Founded in 2016, by Ryoma Ito, Yash Nelapati and Dannie Chu in the startup is based in San Francisco, California. (^{_{More about future plan here}} )
MakersPlace, a digital marketplace, has issued the NFT for the Beeple’s artwork that is auctioned by Christie’s. It’s interesting because ‘Christie’s has never offered a new media artwork of this scale or importance before,’ says Noah Davis, specialist in Post-War & Contemporary Art at Christie’s in New York. ‘Acquiring Beeple’s work is a unique opportunity to own an entry in the blockchain itself created by one of the world’s leading digital artists.’

2. OpenSea
The first decentralized NFT OpenSea is a marketplace for user-owned digital goods that include collectibles, game items, domain names, digital art, and other blockchain-backed assets. It was founded in November 2017 by Alex Atallah and Devin Finzer
OpenSea is the largest digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including ERC721 and ERC1155 assets. Pioneering the NFT trading space, with over 12 million assets, 500+ dapps, and 10,000 ETH in monthly volume, OpenSea has long established its position as an industry leader.
OpenSea also powers other NFT trading platforms, such as the marketplace in Somnium Space, a virtual-reality world with a blockchain-powered economy. That means anyone in the Somnium community can buy parcels with Dai and accept the stable coin in the marketplace without worrying about fluctuations in crypto prices.

3 SuperRare
SuperRare was founded in 2017 by John Crain, Charles Crain, and Johnathan Perkins (They are also the founders of Pixura)
SuperRare is targeting art creators and collectors. It allows you to produce products whose originality will be tracked by the blockchain. On the SuperRare platform, artists create a piece of art and tokenize their creation with Non-Fungible Token (NFT). To interact on the SuperRare platform, users will need to connect using MetaMask.

4. Hashmasks
Hashmasks the most recent player on the NFT launched at the end of January 2021. And already proved to have good results. $26 million in sales in more than 2 weeks.
Hashmasks is a living digital art collectible created by over 70 artists globally. It is a collection of 16,384 unique digital portraits. The Hashmask collection is unique in the way it involves the users in the creation process.
Hashmasks is listed on the OpenSea trading platform and, according to official data, 15,000 masks worth $ 10 million were sold in four days. Value of the most expensive project is estimated at 900 ETH( _{^{More about them you can find in Dapp Radar}} )

5.Async Art
Async Art is a new art movement built on the blockchain. Founded by Conlan Rios in January 2020 Async Art is helping to create a new art revolution built on the Ethereum blockchain. Our users create, collect, and trade programmable art comprising a Master work and Layers that are independently owned and controlled: our users become part of the art themselves.
An Async Art piece consists of two token types: the Master and its Layers. Master tokens denote ownership of the entire piece while Layers are what compile to generate the final image.
Launched in February 2020, in a modest gallery in front of a global livestream audience because of Covid -19 there has already been over $5M in bid volume on the platform and over $1M in artist sales. More info abou here

6. RaRible
RaRible platform also allows you to turn art objects into digital collectibles. Rarible has work with its own RARI coin and is the first community-owned NFT marketplace.

7. Nifty Gateway
The leader in terms of Art Sales is The Nifty Gateway platform Nifties from drops are sold directly by the creator. You can buy them here before they sell out – or purchase them from other users on the secondary marketplace.
All collections are available for sale on the platform at a certain limited time. _{^{The schedule of the sells periods you can find here}}

8.Foundation
Foundation is a crypto-powered platform and marketplace for buying and selling unique and limited-edition.
Kayvon Tehranian is the founder and CEO of Foundation Labs, a platform for buying and selling limited edition goods.
Think of it as a crypto marketplace that creates new revenue streams for creators, and financial incentives for buyers.

9.Museum of Contemporary Digital Art
The Museum of Contemporary Digital Art provides digital art education and technology to artists, collectors, institutions and art lovers. First and foremost, MoCDA is a museum that exhibits digital artworks for the purpose of documenting, collecting and advancing the position of digital art.
The MoCDA team works with major art and blockchain organizations, including the Tate, SuperRare, and the Blockchain Game Alliance, so on