NFTs were considered a bubble by many during the first wave of their popularity. Nonetheless, they are still here, helping digital artists make millions for their work. In the age of the internet, digital pieces of work became worthless. Anyone could download a video clip, image, or meme created by someone online. There was no ownership of digital work and thus no payment. However, NFT Art is changing that.

What is NFT Art?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens on a blockchain, usually on Ethereum blockchain, signifying some other data like video clips, images, or memes. You can easily verify the authenticity of an NFT art by tracking it. This helps in checking the ownership of a piece. Moreover, counterfeiting an NFT art is nearly impossible.

In Crypto jargon, NFTs are smart contracts build upon a decentralized blockchain network. ERC-721 is a common NFT. Individuals receive proof of interaction upon interacting with them.

An NFT is unique and one of its kind. The data linked to it also becomes unique. For instance, CryptoPunks was the first-ever NFT art created in 2017. It consisted of 10,000 24-by-24 pixel images. A buyer could get one by paying the ethereum gas fee.

After the sale of every punk, no new could be created or minted on the blockchain. Hence, the CryptoPunks were a scarce asset. Their supply was controlled through smart contracts. The smart contract is like a legal agreement. It has all the terms and conditions for how an asset is going to be treated.

NFT Crypto Art Boom in 2021:

The start of 2021 brought with it a boom of NFTs. Non-fungible tokens are suddenly all over the news. A digital artist, Beeple, recently sold his painting The First 5000 Days for a record-breaking price of $69 million. The meteoric rise of NFTs is attracting new artists and young investors. People are willing to pay a stash of money for ownership of otherwise freely available items.

The rise of NFTs can also be due to the rise of overall crypto markets in the post-pandemic world. The Coronavirus situation in 2020 led to a downfall of the global economy. Countries around the globe started suffering from inflation. In this scenario, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fashioned themselves as the hedge against inflation. Wall Street investors and the corporate sector flocked towards digital assets leading to a bullish crypto market.

NFT art is just another source of capitalizing on surging crypto markets. They give proof of ownership to the holder.

NFTs can be created from any piece of information. For instance, the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, sold his first-ever tweet for 2.9 Million Dollars on 22nd March.

How to Create NFTs?

Let’s say you are the creator of a digital piece of art. You upload it on the internet. Some random individuals download it and suddenly the owner of the original piece is lost. Now you want to reclaim the ownership. That’s where NFTs come into the picture.

You can store the ownership-related information of digital art on the blockchain. It confirms that the piece you have is the original one.

The process of creating NFTs is pretty basic. You don’t need to have a deep understanding of crypto for it. Here are the steps.

Step 1:

Pick a blockchain on which you want to issue your NFTs. There are options like Binance Smart Chain, Tron, EOS, Polkadot, Tezos. Nonetheless, the most popular blockchain for this purpose is Ethereum. Therefore, we will guide you on how to create NFTs on Ethereum.

One thing to note here is that NFT marketplaces are blockchain-based. For instance, if you create tokens on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), then you can only sell them on forums that support BSC assets. Hence, choose wisely to increase your chances of getting good payment for your piece.

Step 2:

Once you have chosen the Ethereum blockchain, get a wallet that supports ERC-721. Binance Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and Meta Mask are good for this.

Step 3:

Add $50-$100 worth of ether coins (ETH) to your wallet. You can purchase these coins from a crypto exchange using bank transfer, credit card, or other options.

Step 4:

Go to an NFT supporting platform, connect your wallet to the exchange and upload the digital art which you want to convert into an NFT. You can add a name and description for your artwork as well.

Once the NFT is created, you can proceed to sell it. You can sell the NFTs for cryptocurrencies like ERC-20 tokens.

Best Marketplaces for NFT Crypto Art:

Anyone can mint NFTs on with the above-mentioned steps. There are multiple marketplaces where you can sell your NFTs. Here are the top 3 marketplaces for NFT crypto art.

OpenSea:

OpenSea.io is the most famous crypto platform. It was created in 2018. Today it claims to be the largest NFT marketplace.

OpenSea is great for its high liquidity. Therefore, it is a popular choice for selling crypto art. The platform charges a 2.5% fee on every successful sale. Moreover, you can earn bounties by matching the seller and buyer of crypto art.

Rarible:

Rarible is the second most popular platform after OpenSea. It is also ethereum based marketplace for Non-Fungible Tokens. You can issue and trade NFT crypto art on Rarible.

Rarible is a full-on decentralized exchange. The users of this marketplace are awarded RARI tokens each week. It uses a similar DeFi protocol as Uniswap.

Superfarm:

Superfarm allows gamers to farm non-fungible tokens. It is a cross-chain platform launched in March this year. Superfarm’s functionality will increase with full version release in the coming months. The platform creators are aiming to integrate NFT-based voting and rental services.

What is In for Buyers and Sellers of NFT:

The whopping prices of NFTs make it seems as if the buyers are being ripped off. However, digital art buyers are in for something of value, and most of the time they get even bigger returns.

Also Read: The Rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in 2021

There was a time when ‘need of an object’ was its only selling point. People would buy stuff if they needed it. But today, there is a variety of reasons behind purchase decisions. NFTs are also capitalizing on complex reasoning.

NFT Art is purchased for following three reasons:

1. Getting the ownership of original content. It is the same as owning an original painting of the Mona Lisa. Others may have a copy of it but you have the original.
2. The feeling of fulfillment as you pay the artists who put the hardcore effort into making the artifact.
3. Digital art can be traded on a later date for the same or even more money.

Some analysts call the NFT craze a blessing for digital artists. The artists get to sell images, videos, illustrations, and comic books for a stash of money. Previously, digital art was distributed freely on the internet. Artists neither got recognition nor money for their work.

The speculative rise of NFTs is a great opportunity for artists to squeeze some cash.

Criticism on NFTs:

NFTs are criticized for their unregulated price surge, unpredictable future, and often making the impostor rich while the real artist gets nothing.

Non-Fungible tokens are sold for whatever the recipient is willing to pay. For this reason, many art pieces have been sold for ridiculously high prices in the past two months.

The second criticism is that NFTs have no future. An NFT art can lose value overnight. This can incur a huge loss on the last buyer of the token.

Lastly, NFTs do give the artists recognition. Nonetheless, an impostor can mint someone else’s art and sell it for huge sums of money. This practice is disheartening for digital artists.

Closing Thoughts:

NFT Art is a revolutionary trend in the technological world. It has helped digital artists earn millions overnight. Anyone can go to an NFT marketplace and create their own NFT Art. However, the value of a token highly depends on how much someone is willing to pay for it. Therefore, we cannot be sure about the future of NFTs. At the moment, you can take advantage of speculative mania by minting a few non-fungible tokens of your own.