Instead, you’re basically buying metadata that grants you bragging rights-or, more often, the opportunity to sell that NFT later for even more money. NFTs are sold on any of various online marketplaces, where users can “mint,” or create, one for anything digital.Īn NFT doesn’t mean that you own the piece of art itself. Any blockchain can in theory support NFTs, but this one was designed for them. And while Bitcoin is primarily about exchanging money, Ethereum is better for exchanging assets. If you haven’t heard of Ethereum, you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin. The ones you’re hearing about are pretty much all supported by Ethereum. Non-fungible tokens are unique pieces of data that are part of a blockchain, bought and sold with the currency that blockchain supports. He was actually the person who taught me about it.” “And there wasn’t a lot of information about it, but I was intrigued. But it seems really interesting,” she says. Another artist recruited her for the site’s digital print business, but then she spoke with Kayvon Tehranian, the founder of Foundation, who mentioned its NFT sales. And as some artists turn their digital creations into profitable offerings for a new audience of friendly, enthusiastic buyers, there’s a question lingering in the background: Is the NFT craze benefiting digital artists, or are artists helping to make wealthy cryptocurrency holders even richer? “That feeling … is amazing”Įllie Pritts, a photographer and animator from Los Angeles, learned about NFTs after talking to Foundation, an invite-only NFT marketplace, several months ago.
Newcomers must untangle practical, logistical, and ethical conundrums if they want to enter the fray before the current wave of interest passes. NFTs are now simply another thing artists have to check. Digital artists already battle scammers who steal artwork and sell it as merchandise on user-generated T-shirt shops, for instance. Just as the trend is shuffling the deck on what is considered “valuable” digital art, however, it’s also re-creating some of the same problems that have plagued artists for ages: confusing hype, the whims of rich collectors, and theft. Others point to the environmental impact of crypto and worry about unrealistic expectations set by, say, the news that digital artist Beeple had sold a JPG of his collected works for $69 million in a Christie’s auction. Some promise that NFTs are part of a digital revolution that will democratize fame and give creators control over their destinies. NFTs have become an unavoidable subject for anyone earning a living as a creative person online, prompting a rush to understand a concept that is deeply mired in the jargon of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. She tweeted about it and they were, rather promptly, taken down.
NFTs like these aren’t necessarily attempting to sell the art itself, but the entries prominently featured her work and her name, giving the impression that she had authorized them. Marble Cards, an NFT marketplace that sells URLs to pretty much any spot on the web as if they were digital trading cards, suddenly started showing listings for links to her work. She’s still on the fence, but last week someone attempted to make the decision for her. So despite her initial reaction to NFTs, she started researching whether they might provide some alternative income. Most of Podedworna’s income comes from the video game companies that hire her to work on their projects, but she makes her own art on the side. “He just phrased it in the most unfortunate way possible,” she says. Since she’s a concept artist and illustrator, it would make sense for Podedworna to have some interest in them. He had the best of intentions, she thought: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are basically just a way of selling and buying anything digital, including art, that’s supported by cryptocurrency.
She found it really off-putting, like a pitch for a pyramid scheme. Anna Podedworna first heard about NFTs a month or so ago, when a fellow artist sent her an Instagram message trying to convince her to get on board.
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