NFTs are on everyone’s lips and no wonder why. This kind of blockchain inversion is getting popular and we are here to explain what is it and where it comes from.
What is an NFT?
NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens are digital assets certified by blockchain technology.
Any digital file can be copied an infinite number of times and each copy created will be an exact clone of the original. That is great when you want to produce a humongous amount of digital products but it means a problem for the artist who wants to launch a special 50 original editions of their digital artwork.
An NFT on the other hand is proof of authenticity. For instance, we all may get a Picasso cartel and hang it on our wall but it doesn’t make it the real piece.
What do NFTs have to do with blockchain?
If you are a painter and want to create a special limited digital edition of the Super Bowl you won’t get much revenue since the piece will be copied a million times on the internet.
When the blockchain technology of Bitcoin and other crypto rose, people realized that it was a great way to create distinctive and unrepeatable digital pieces. With blockchain software, anyone could verify the file's authenticity and follow it when it changes hands.
A difference between cryptocurrency and NFTs is that the former is regulated by the value of the assets, while the latter is regulated by supply and demand depending on the fluctuation of the market. Although NFTs are technologically related to cryptocurrencies, cryptos are fungible assets and NFTs are not.
Is digital art really art?
Generally, crypto-art are those illustrations created digitally. Still, any kind of digital file can also be considered crypto-art, for instance, a song, an e-book, a video, or a tweet.
This concept was born out of the necessity to protect the authenticity of digital art and the ease of duplicating any digital file. The value of a digital art piece revolves around the same characteristics as a traditional piece of art: its authenticity, exclusivity and ownership.
On March 11, 2021, everything changed. The JPG file, “Everyday – The First 5,000 Days” was sold for 69,3 million USD in New York. Ever since digital artwork sales have risen across the world.
That very same month of March, a New York Times article was sold at 560.000 USD; Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for $2,9 million and a portrait made by Robot Sophia was bought for 800.000 USD.
Artist and NFT Collections
NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens are digital assets certified by blockchain technology.
More and more people are taking up digital art collecting, either because they root for digital artists or hope that the pieces will be revalued over time, as happens with traditional works of art.
Many artists are taking the plunge and jumping into the fungible tokens wave, creating digital assets out of their work.
To name some of the most influential artists, companies and collections, we want to highlight the contribution of the following creators:
- The Bored Ape Yacht Club: Designed by Larva Labs in 2017. It’s one of the most popular crypto art collections. The pieces portray digital apes. A Bored Apes NFT was sold for $24,39 million.
- XCOPY: A London artist with great compositions on SuperRare or Nifty Gateway. He is the bad boy in the digital art world and one of his NFTs was sold for 1330 Ethereum, around 6 million USD at the moment.
- Mad Dog Jones: This Canadian artist sold a piece titled “Replicator” for $4.1 million. The auction started at $100.
- Fewocious: His most famous piece is a 5 NFTs series called “Hello, I’m Victor and This Is My Life”. By the age of 18, he already had $370,000 in revenue on crypto.
- José Delbo: This Venezuelan artist focuses on selling comics in NFT format, and he is the best at it! His first comic was sold for just $642. But today José’s artwork is valued at more than 8 million dollars.
Union Avatars Community NFTs
In Union Avatars, we are exploring the possibility of creating community or PFP (profile picture) NFTs, our first batch of unique and thematically related NFTs.
Once minted, our community NFTs will become a membership ID. We will grant the owners of the NFTs discounts and priority access to our new products and assets, with their private room on our Discord server and unique and personalised experiences.
It remains to be seen whether the NFT market will become a new bubble or, on the contrary, whether they have established itself as a major player in the art world.
Would you like to be part of this new world? Start shaping your virtual identity and create your realistic 3D avatar!
Our new website will be launched on May the 30th, until then, join the waitlist and you will receive your photo-realistic 3D avatar in June. The only thing you need to do is take a selfie, we will do the rest!
