This week musician and artist Grimes raked in almost $6m on 10 pieces of digital artwork in a 48-hour auction.
The recent craze around NFTs continues to make for jaw-dropping headlines.
If you need a refresher, an NFT (non-fungible token) is a digital collectible. A beloved piece of digital art — say a cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso — that was merely an internet meme can now be sold for 300 Ether (ETH), or about $590,000, thanks to a record on a blockchain. This blockchain record means that the true owner (or owners) can be verified and that the artwork cannot be reproduced, unlike regular memes or GIFs on the internet. Think of it like owning an original piece of art versus just taking a photo of one.
So are NFTs another step towards the democratization of art? Sort of. 30 minutes into the auction, one of Grimes’ works had jumped from $111 to $123,456. Investors are quickly gobbling up buzzworthy NFTs and reselling them for profit.
But it’s getting there and product makers are leading the charge as much as artists or crypto owners themselves with NFT marketplaces.
Rarible is like a Christies for NFT collectibles. A community-owned marketplace, Rarible lets artists mint their work with the option to sell with single or split ownership, and in an auction or at a flat price. Ilya Komolkin at Rarible confirmed to the Product Hunt community that you can track the value and history of your art over time.
SuperRare, Foundation, OpenSea, and Portion are four more NFT marketplaces to check out. SuperRare prioritizes the collectors just as much as the artists by letting you showcase your collections and highlighting top collectors.
Whether you intend to buy, window shop, or just want to gawk at bidding wars, exploring the artwork for sale is a rabbit hole of fun.
The recent craze around NFTs continues to make for jaw-dropping headlines.
If you need a refresher, an NFT (non-fungible token) is a digital collectible. A beloved piece of digital art — say a cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso — that was merely an internet meme can now be sold for 300 Ether (ETH), or about $590,000, thanks to a record on a blockchain. This blockchain record means that the true owner (or owners) can be verified and that the artwork cannot be reproduced, unlike regular memes or GIFs on the internet. Think of it like owning an original piece of art versus just taking a photo of one.
So are NFTs another step towards the democratization of art? Sort of. 30 minutes into the auction, one of Grimes’ works had jumped from $111 to $123,456. Investors are quickly gobbling up buzzworthy NFTs and reselling them for profit.
But it’s getting there and product makers are leading the charge as much as artists or crypto owners themselves with NFT marketplaces.
Rarible is like a Christies for NFT collectibles. A community-owned marketplace, Rarible lets artists mint their work with the option to sell with single or split ownership, and in an auction or at a flat price. Ilya Komolkin at Rarible confirmed to the Product Hunt community that you can track the value and history of your art over time.
SuperRare, Foundation, OpenSea, and Portion are four more NFT marketplaces to check out. SuperRare prioritizes the collectors just as much as the artists by letting you showcase your collections and highlighting top collectors.
Whether you intend to buy, window shop, or just want to gawk at bidding wars, exploring the artwork for sale is a rabbit hole of fun.
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