What is an NFT art?
The Non Fungible Token is one of the non-tangible assets any company can have. It exists in the digital part of the company which does not have any physical existence. The NFT can include an article, an artwork, or a picture; the example includes the “Disaster Girl” which became a meme and it was sold for $500,000.
To understand more about NFT, try to take the example of a $100 bill which has the same worth as five bills of $20 and they can be swapped; it means that the $100 bill is a fungible token. However, if you take an autograph from a celebrity on the same $100 bill, it becomes a unique bill and its value cannot be determined. Also, now this cannot be swapped with five 20 dollar bills. This bill now becomes an NFT and cannot be swapped by the equivalent value because it has now become an investment.
Value of NFT for its creators
1. Digital art ownership
Before the era of Cryptocurrency, we were not familiar with the fact that somebody owns a digital product. However, with the rise of the concept of NFT, the creators get the opportunity to own their digital work which they can rent or sell depending on their usage. In order to do so, the NFT is legally registered on the Block chain after getting a token on the cryptocurrency service. In this way, any artwork that is created and minted by you, will be solely yours and will create a path back to you. This will help the new artists to get themselves recognized by their talent. However, the artists have faced the issue of fraud where their work was sold by others who do not own them. It is still an unanswered question how this will be stopped and what these artists will do about it.
2. A source of income
With the help of NFT, the digital creators are able to monetize their artworks and designs which was not possible previously. Now, it has become easier and quicker for the digital designers to produce the artwork and get the reward for it. Unlike other tasks, they do not have to wait for the payments and chase clients with printed files and wait for them to approve the work or send it back for amendments.
Moreover, a lot of artists put royalties on their work and they earn 8 to 10% every time that art piece is sold. Also, the NFT does not stand alone but it is dependent on the Crypto Art which is ultimately dependent on the cryptocurrency. Which means, if the cryptocurrency drops, so does the value of NFT..
3. Access to more people
Previously, the art creator used to wait for physical exhibitions to take place so that they could showcase their talent to the world and then sell them. However, with the rise in NFT trading, they can now show their talent to the entire world by just putting it online. This is how more people get the access to the artwork which is a win win situation for the art creators and art lovers as well.
Also, most of the graphic designers face the issue of instability in their income and their talent gets wasted especially if they are the unprivileged ones. However, there is an immediacy in the generation of income in NFT and this helps such creators and they do not have to rely on odd jobs. Just like any social media platform, the NFT platforms allow creators to get immediate access in the world of designers. This is how they can get more exposure to the market so that they can learn the art of selling and convert their audiences into their clients.
4. A heavy footprint concerning ecology
According to one of the few controversies, the environment is getting affected by the NFT artworks. Take the example of Joanie Lemercier, a French artist, who recently made thousands of dollars by just selling his NFT in 10 sec and it does sound incredible and tempting. However, what no one could foresee was the type of energy generated by this transaction which was more than what he uses in 2 years in his apartment. That art piece was then resold by his seller to someone else and this transaction generated the same amount of energy as the previous one. When asked later, it was due the lack of transparency in the crypto art platforms.
Therefore, the type of energy that is consumed by the NFT artwork is alarming for most of the designers. This issue does not end with the crypto art trade but it is actually a part of “proof of work” which is the digital mechanism.
Creation of an NFT art piece
The designers first have to create a Crypto Wallet which is going to store the Ethereum; this is used while paying the fee for minting of NFT. Then, they need to connect the Crypto Wallet to the market places for NFT so that they can upload their work for the purpose of selling them online. These platforms are similar to Etsy or EBay and the most popular of them are Open Sea, Super Rare, Rarible, Known Origin, and Mintable. Here, the creator has the authority to choose how many of them they want to upload and sell at the same time.
The sales related to the NFT or crypto art, have the potential to change the entire design industry and this could be said that it is just the beginning of something that will be beneficial to the future generations. However, there is one more fact that is related to the NFT and this cannot be denied by anybody which is its failure in terms of environmental reliability especially while making the sale. So, everybody is concerned about what is going to happen in the future because there is no way this process is ending but designers have to come up with something that is going to save the environment. Therefore, just wait and hope for the best!
Other than being the most secure data storage center, the block chain technology is well known for its privacy measures. In this technology, the concerns can be catered privately by providing anonymous access to the data. Also, the creator can limit the access so that the users cannot make any change to the data. Since nobody gets the access to delete or change the data on block chain other than the creator itself, the data becomes immutable once transactions are recorded on it. In order to make the process valid, the participants of the network have to agree to the consensus before appending the transactions to the block chain.
The block chain professor and expert of accounting and finance in American University’s Kogod School of Business, Casey Evans stated that fraud can be detected by the block chain technology because the information is shared in the real time and all the transactions are visible to all the participants. This makes it easier to track to know who made what transaction at what time.
Just like any other criminal activity, the fraudsters use a lot of ways to hide their activities and processes including changing the paper or electronic documents, deleting or altering the information and details in the accounting systems of the company, and creating wrong files. However, if the shared digital ledger is used, the probability of fraud reduces because the transactions are transparent and they are visible to all the members of the business network with the help of a supply chain method. Due to the transparency feature, the participants are able to see the transfer and history of assets which makes it easier for them to identify fraudulent transactions. On the other hand, if somebody wants to tamper with the transactions, he needs to gain access to the majority of the system which is technically not possible. Moreover, the other feature of block chain technology that prevents the frauds from happening is that the user needs to get permission from the creator to access and make changes in the data. There are few block chains where permission cannot be given which cannot be used for highly sensitive data which can only be used and accessed by the authorized personnel. Therefore, it can be said that the usage of block chain technology will make the businesses less exposed to fraudulent activities.
