How Artists Sell Digital Art for Thousands of Dollars

Last January 18, "Rick and Morty" creator Justin Rolland sold digital art on the online auction platform Nifty Gateway. His collection earned him over a million dollars. Selling digital art for gobs of money has been a huge challenge for many artists. However, there appears to be a new hope. At least, for the more tech-savvy.

Digital art, by nature, can be duplicated. And by conventional art appraisal standards, this nature has prevented digital art from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with traditional art when it comes to value. Among many factors, the price of traditional art is dependent on its scarcity. So how can a piece of bits and bytes command a high price when anyone who has access to the file can just hit copy-paste?

Yesterday, I stumbled upon an online discussion on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which is based on blockchain technology. An NFT is, essentially, a digital asset that cannot be duplicated or converted. What this basically means is, when someone buys your artwork, they don't just download a JPEG. The NFT contains a code (called a "smart contract") that basically tells the entire blockchain network that the piece is unique and is owned by whoever bought it.

What sweetens the deal for artists is the potential to earn more money through royalties. When someone buys your art, then sells it to another person, you can automatically get a percentage of the price.

I haven't plunged into the whole blockchain thing, so there's a lot of it that I don't understand. But there are already a hundreds of artists who have started fiddling with NFTs on sites like SuperRare, Rarible, and Mintable. Some platforms are curated while others are open to anyone.

Having visited those sites and checking out what they have, I wonder whether my artwork stands a chance at being sold through those platforms. Plus, I believe you need to have a cryptocurrency wallet to become a seller. I might be wrong, though.

But it's definitely something worth looking into.

I end this post with new digital artwork. Anyone wanna buy?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How To Pace Comics

What Would You Do With 11 Billion Pesos?

Two Weeks Since Burnout