NFTs in the art world

They are everywhere – Non-fungible tokens, short NFT, are still the talk of the hour, even two years after their initial hype. The rise of crypto technology and web3 (a new, decentralised concept of the internet) is synonymous with the Covid crisis. And NFTs are the sourdough bread of crypto fans, artists, and investors alike. NFTs went from a nerdy niche to becoming a billion-pound market. Although the crypto-based technology has been around for nearly ten years, NFTs gained mainstream popularity at the start of 2021. The technology has come a long way since then and NFTs have evolved far beyond from just being digital collectibles.

The Ukrainian government has recently launched a virtual exhibition, showcasing a collection of NFTs that document the early stage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The collection by the name ‘Meta History: Museum of War’ was launched to raise money for the country’s defence. The NFTs are made up of a tweet related to major events of the first days of the invasion, coupled with artworks from Ukrainian artists. 1051 NFTs were sold in just 24 hours, raising over half a million US dollars.

It is not just the Ukrainian government that has jumped on the NFT bandwagon. In early April, chancellor Rishi Sunak asked the Royal Mint to create its own crypto token, to show the world that Britain is at the forefront of innovative technologies like crypto. And in the world of sports, Liverpool FC has just launched its first NFT collection. By cooperating with the famous London auction house Sotheby’s, the club was able to generate £1.125m in revenue – in just three days.

But the technology still enjoys the biggest hype in the art world. Renowned artist Jeff Koons is the latest creative heavyweight to get into the NFT and outer space! His project ‘Moon Phase’ links digital NFT-art with physical sculptures. These are scheduled to land on the moon later this year in July.

With increasing popularity comes a growing scepticism. 18 months into the NFT-buzz, critics dispute the transformative power of technology. Issues concerning plagiarism, scams, taxation, lacking diversity in the scene, and the immense environmental costs becoming increasingly visible.

“A friend of mine got in touch and said, ‘Have you heard of this? I think you should try it’.”

'Gobbling electric sugar all night 03' by Lee Ellis

'Gobbling electric sugar all night 02' by Lee Ellis

'Gobbling electric sugar all night 04' by Lee Ellis

Despite the unpredictable risks and high costs of operating in the NFT-space, many people across the arts have dipped their toes into it. One of them is Bristol based painter and self-proclaimed “creative force of nature,” Lee Ellis. The artist’s biggest influence is Francis Bacon, an impact that is clearly visible. Lee’s art is centred around abstract portraits, usually drawn with charcoal, oil paint and spray cans. The father of two spends a lot of time in his little studio-shed in the back garden of his family home in Bristol.

Lee started his career as a graphic designer, working for brands like Coca Cola and Unilever. His love for painting, however, was constantly growing. Sometimes he rushed home during lunch breaks, just to paint for a few minutes. “It’s bit of an obsession,” says Lee and laughs. Now, he is almost able to solely focus on his art, and NFTs have played a big part in that.

“A friend of mine got in touch and said, ‘Have you heard of this? I think you should try it’” remembers the artists. So in January 2021, he did. Lee Ellis is a bit of a unique specimen in the world of NFT art. Most of the artwork being traded on the blockchain is digital art, like gifs, photoshop art, or animations. Physical, in real life (IRL) painters and sculptors are a minority in the NFT art space.

After spending hours on twitter and talking to others about their experiences, he set up an account at ‘Rarible’, one of the NFT marketplaces. “Luckily, I had a backlog of work. I have archives of all these imageries, so I could use those as a base, and I just went from there,” remembers Ellis. “I see NFTs essentially being a form of transaction. It's just a way of buying goods and having proof of ownership.”

The Bristolian artist ventured into the NFT space when it was already at full swing. At that point, the big auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's had already sold NFT-art worth millions. And world-famous artists like Damian Hirst pulled NFTs into mainstream culture.

Anybody who hasn’t been living like a hermit has probably heard of NFTs by now. But it might sometimes still feel confusing. Computer scientists and mathematicians have been experimenting with blockchain based technology since 2012, trying to create a decentralised system that establishes a system of prove of ownership for digital items, such as art, pictures, or music.

"The Covid-19 pandemic also played an important role in the popularisation of NFTs.”

Non-fungible tokens are a claim to ownership, not too different to any conventional deed of ownership in the physical world. ‘Non-fungible’ just means that the token (contract) does not have any equal value that is stacked against it. This basically means that NFTs are like any traditional collectible, such as Pokémon cards or fine wines. Their value is solely defined by their creator, popularity, and cultural value, rather than being an interchangeable currency, like Dollar or Bitcoin. Most NFTs are just the information linked to a digital file, not the file itself. The file isn’t protected against theft and redistribution.

So why create an NFT in the first place? Well, there are a few attributes that make NFTs interesting for artists and collectors. Firstly, the different collectables, or tokens, are stored on the blockchain. In other words, the information is not stored on just one computer but on many servers around the world, at the same time. This makes the NFT indestructible, it cannot be altered, and any information linked to it is preserved. Anybody can see who minted (the technical the term for creating) the NFT, who has owned it in the past and who owns it now. The blockchain basically functions as a huge book of records that everybody can access and add to. And that massive book of records is kept in many digital libraries at the same time.

Most of the visual art that is being traded as NFTs usually comes in form of JPEGs. But there is also generative art that makes use of the underlying blockchain technology. These artworks change every time they are being traded and the collector becomes the artists. These artworks are truly unique and would not exist without the technology behind the blockchain.

Autoglyphs are crypto artworks that live on the blockchain

“There are only few examples of true 'Crypto Art’ of works that use the technology of crypto platforms conceptually by exploring their creative possibilities instead of exploiting them as a mere way to sell and buy NFTs,” says Filippo Lorenzin, artistic director at the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA) in London.

Lorenzin and his colleagues at the MoCDA have been following developments in the art world since the early days of the technology. The organisation is spearheading the research into digital art and the changing nature of the art market in the UK.

“There was already a large community of artists and experts working on blockchain technologies before the traditionally biggest names in the world of art got interested in them. The Covid-19 pandemic also played an important role in the popularisation of NFTs; it forced museums, galleries and artists that relied on IRL platforms and exhibition spaces to pay more attention to the possibilities offered by digital technology,” says Filippo Lorenzin.

Virtual art exibition at the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art

“I probably spend about 10% of my time painting. Everything else is admin stuff, social media, connecting with people and uploading to galleries."

'Migraine or identity crisis 01' by Lee Ellis

'Migraine or identity crisis 02' by Lee Ellis

'Migraine or identity crisis 03' by Lee Ellis

'Migraine or identity crisis 04' by Lee Ellis

But going digital isn’t as straightforward as it might sound. The NFT space has its own workings and a strong community that stays connected on Twitter and Discord, a popular chat app in the tech and gaming community. “When I first saw it, I thought the NFT space was quite cliquey,” remembers Lee Ellis. The painter first took to twitter, to check out the competition and figure out where he can fit into this space. “I found it quite hard to get in and talk to people. But once you get past the sort of initial hurdle, you find that everyone's feeling the same way and they're usually quite open and nice.”

The artist also had to figure out how he could translate his physical work, often huge canvases, to digital pieces of art that still represent his style and are desirable to collectors. “I try and merge the two together by bundling the artwork, the physical artwork with the NFT. The NFT becomes a certificate of authenticity, in theory, but that requires a lot of trust on the person getting the original painting.” That trust is important because anybody that owns the original painting can go ahead and just take a photo of it and create hundreds of new NFTs.

Lee knows what he’s talking about. The artist has experienced NFT fraud first hand. Someone screen grabbed Lee’s entire Instagram and put it on ‘Open Sea’, one of the biggest NFT marketplaces. The artist was lucky, and the stolen artwork was taken down by the platform. “It’s a bit of a faff and it takes a while, but it gets removed, as long as you've got proof that you've created it. Fortunately, I have the physical pieces in my studio.”

“I also had one person just right click-save everything from another [NFT platform] and put it up for sale. I didn't find it myself. Luckily, someone else messaged me and said, ‘I think this is yours.’ I reported it and got it taken down. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know how to do anything more than that,” the artist admits.

Another difficulty that Ellis had to figure out was putting a price on his digital art. The reason why coming up with the right price tag is so difficult lies in the nature of the NFT market. Most of the NFT art is traded on marketplaces, or virtual galleries that run on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a blockchain like Bitcoin, with the same popularity and shortfalls. Ether (ETH), the currency of the Ethereum blockchain, for example, is very volatile.

“I try and keep the original price [of my NFTs] and don't change it. I try and keep it a little bit higher for NFTs than I would do for my physical pieces, and that's purely because the price [of NFTs] fluctuates so much. And then there is the upfront costs of getting started. I think it was a few hundred quid. I could afford that and didn't mind, but you might lose that and never make any sales,” Lee warns.

But it’s not just fraud and the volatility of the market that is an issue for artists. Trading art on the Ethereum blockchain is also expensive. Every transaction has a cost to it, called gas fees, and artists thinking about selling their work on the Ethereum chain must consider any potential price development of their work before minting.

These restrains bother Lee: “If I want to change the price of something, I can only go down. I can't increase the price, unless I delist [the NFT], which costs me money, then list it again at a higher price, which costs me more money. So, I try and keep it as is and hope for the best.”

Anyone keen on making a quick buck by selling artwork on a marketplace that runs on the Ethereum blockchain, also needs to consider how much time they want to spend on marketing and building a collector base. There are millions of artists, and it’s difficult to stick out in the masses. It can take a while until an artist finds their niche.

“I probably spend about 10% of my time painting. Everything else is admin stuff, social media, connecting with people and uploading to galleries. You could have a whole studio filled with work, but if you're not willing to talk to people, and promote your work, you're not going to get anywhere,” says Lee.

The hard work has paid off and the painter was able to extend his audience and broaden his collector basis. “I still have the same collectors, some in the traditional art world, and then I've just got a few new ones. I haven't seen much crossover between the two yet, but it's early days.”

"Out of the blue you could see a new collection skyrocketing for whatever reason.”

Collectors in the traditional art world value physical objects, a nice painting or a sculpture, something to hang on to, something to inherit. NFT collectors are different. The majority are males between 20 and 35, with a background in tech, finance, or both. Although the market is still new and occupied by a younger generation, it shares a lot of commonalities with traditional markets.

Researchers from the token economy group at the Alan Turing Institute have recently published a study about the makeup of the NFT art market. The researchers analysed data of 6.1 million trades of 4.7 million NFTs between June 2017, and April 2021. The team from the Alan Turing institute noticed that the market is dominated by only a few traders. The top 10% of traders perform 85% of all transactions, that’s 97% of all artworks. Besides identifying a growing oligopoly, researchers also found that 75% of all artworks are sold for less than 15 dollars and only 1% of NFT art is sold at an average of 6290 dollars. This shows that a lot of people who venture into the space make little money, if any, from their NFT artworks. Looking at secondary sales, the situation isn’t much better. Only 20% of all sales taken into consideration by researchers in their study had a secondary sale. Most artwork just sits on NFT marketplaces, untouched and forgotten.

“If you want to make a lot of money out of your NFT, you better sell it at the beginning of its lifetime,” Amin Mekacher recommends. “At some point, the curve is just going to start to flatten. You're not going to get as much return or as much benefit that you would as the first owner of the NFT.”

Amin is a PhD student at City, University of London. Together with fellow mathematician and PhD student Alberto Bracci, he follows the trends and analyses developments in the NFT market, using complex mathematical modelling.

But the data that researchers have acquired so far only offers a snapshot of the market, because the NFT space is in constant transition. “We use the term nonstationary,” says Alberto. “That means [the NFT market] is not an equilibrium at all. Out of the blue you could see a new collection skyrocketing for whatever reason.”

'In real life' NFT exibition in London, March 2022. Picture: K.Wittwer

“Good quality work does not equal sales, does not equal success."

Besides extensive marketing, luck is often the deciding factor for artist in the space. “Good quality work does not equal sales, does not equal success. The best people, the best quality sometimes is rewarded, but not always. It is lots of different factors that make it quite confusing and can make it negative when you are trying hard and you're working hard, and you can't be recognised,” says Gavin Strange.

The 39-year-old is a director and designer at the renowned Aardman studio in Bristol. The artist has worked for the production company for nearly 14 years now. When he is not creating motion graphics or animations for popular films and games, he goes under the alias ‘Jamfactory’. Gavin entered the NFT space in 2020. He got into the NFT space through a friend. Like Lee Ellis, a fellow artist sparked his interest in the technology.

“The whole point of [NFTs] is about making work and selling it, and the work finding a home. That is the point of it, ownership, digital ownership. It adds value to the art,” says Gavin. Before NFTs, digital artists like Gavin often had little opportunities to get appreciation, except through likes on platforms like Instagram. In reality, artists don’t make any revenue from that, on the contrary; usually only the big platforms profit. That has resulted in some artists holding back on their art.

“I've made so much stuff for no reason for no one else but me, that just lives on a hard drive and doesn't do anything.” Although sounding pragmatic, the artist’s love for technology and experimenting with new things have motivated him to venture into the NFT space.

“I'm really interested in technology, and I really like just having a play, whether it's a new medium, or just sort of a new piece of software. I just enjoy having a tinka, but I had no real expectations apart from ‘let's just put it into the world and see’.”

Gavin minted his first works on the digital art marketplace 'KnownOrigin'. Like almost all major marketplaces, it operates on Ethereum, a blockchain which, in its current state, is notorious for its high energy consumption and carbon footprint, which is estimated to be around 21.35 metric tons of CO2 each year. At the moment, Ethereum runs on a proof-of-work blockchain. Computers compete against each other to be the first to solve complex puzzles to validate a transaction, and that uses a lot of energy. Developers are trying to move the blockchain to work on a proof-of-stake basis. The users validate transactions according to how many coins they contribute, their ‘stake’. This process uses a lot less energy and is seen as the future of blockchain technology.

'ＳＰＥＣＴＲＡＬ［００００１］' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

'ＳＰＥＣＴＲＡＬ［００００２］' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

Artwork by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

'ＳＰＥＣＴＲＡＬ［００００３］' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

"It might not be as formal, but there are still gatekeepers who run the space.”

'Portal III' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

'Portal IV' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

'Portal III' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

The NFT market is highly competitive and big marketplaces, like ‘OpenSea,’ ‘Foundation,’ or ‘Nifty Gateway’ are controlling most of the market. An oligopoly of platforms has taken hold of a technology, whose premise was decentralisation. And much like real-world-markets, the companies that provide the infrastructure dictate the terms.

“In theory, a decentralized platform-less space should let everyone flourish because that's the point, no single person owns it. But what's happened is, instead of banks owning this space, it's new gatekeepers. It might not be as formal, but there are still gatekeepers who run the space,” complains Gavin.

The marketplaces are popular and get a lot of media attention. That can be the decisive factor for an artist’s potential success or failure. Most marketplaces host some sort of digital exhibition or feature different artists and collections on their front page, just like Spotify promoting a song by featuring it on one of their popular playlists.

Anyone who’s venturing into the NFT space and hopes for instant success should be warned though. Without building an engaged audience, there is a big chance that nobody discovers your work in the sea of others. And the blockchain is brutally honest. Every sale and transaction are visible to anybody on the marketplace.

“I have done okay at times, and I haven't sold any pieces for months and months. That can be quite tough. Sometimes you do make a sale and you think, fantastic, and then nothing for months,” Gavin Strange recalls. The artist has a day job that pays the bills and is not solely relying on NFT sales. For Gavin, the NFT space is a place to experiment and engage with fellow artists.

'Portal II' by Gavin Strange (a.k.a. Jamfactory)

But NFTs surely aren’t for everyone. People who venture into NFTs usually have a certain understanding of and fascination for technology. And not every artistic style necessarily translates well to the NFT space.

“There is no magic formula that works for everybody. It depends on the nature of their works, on their practice and at what point of their career they find themselves when approach the digital art market,” says Filippo Lorenzin of the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art.

“There are only a few artists able to sell without the help of external bodies, like galleries, museums, institutions. I’d suggest any new artist wishing to join the scene to connect with experts to ensure that this is what they want to do with their works.”

“I think it's very important for me to teach people to be versatile and understand the tools to be able to look under the hood and understand what’s going on.”

Niki Selken is a true expert in anything related to digital art and NFTs. The interaction designer, artist, and curator lives and works in Oakland, California. “It was back in 2018, when I first got interested in NFTs,” remembers the artist.

Besides minting her own NFTs, Niki helps others to enter the space. The artist is the creative development director at ‘Grey Area’, a non-profit that builds on art and technology to promote social impact. Niki Selken observes NFTs having a positive effect on people in the arts.

“There are people, who are fully funding themselves with their own artwork now. Two years ago, that would've been unheard of. For new media and digital artists, this is a hundred percent a great thing, if you can find your audience, find your community, and really understand where those people live,” says the creative.

“They’re their own boss. They can self-sustain and make their own work without a bunch of curators being like, ‘I'm sorry, can you just make it a little blacker or a little more Latina or a little more feminine.’”

But that doesn’t mean the NFT space is a diverse environment. According to a report published by the research firm ArtTactic in Novemeber 2021, women make up only 16% of the NFT art market. Niki Selken has noticed some changes in the space, but women and people of colour are still underrepresented. The artist wants to change that. “This conversation goes past NFTs, into power structures in a larger way, that we're seeing online,” says Niki Selken. “There are some women who've made some really big strides and I definitely teach about them. I call out, who's a mother, and who's a working mother.”

The artist wants to enable her students to confidently navigate in the NFT space. They need to be able to understand how smart contracts, like that of an NFT, works on the blockchain, rather than learning lines of code. “I think it's very important for me to teach people to be versatile and understand the tools to be able to look under the hood and understand what’s going on.”

'✨⛰🌙 #unattainablelandscapes' by Niki Selken

'Unattainable Landscapes #4' by Niki Selken

Niki Selken’s students at Grey Area are from diverse backgrounds and usually have different reasons for turning to NFTs. Most of them work in either digital media, photography, or even physical arts.

“They want to understand this new technology and maybe start making NFTs to sell because a lot of them do have quite a big audience following, but they might not have an audience that's buying NFTs. One of the things that I teach is thinking about expanding your audience to an NFT-buying audience. Those two audiences of people that buy a painting and people that buy an NFT are really different.”

“Those folks who have digital artwork, often have a more built-in NFT buying audience, because those are the kind of people that would buy an NFT or the people that would collect a gif,” says the artists.

“If you're a new media artist, you should understand the media you're working with. Just like a painter should understand how to use paint. And like with the affordances of oil paint, you should understand the affordances of code.”

NFT workshops at Grey Area cost 80 dollars, and the organisation offers diversity scholarships, to reach people who aren’t native to the technology and who usually would not have access to the market.

Niki Selken teaches a group of teenagers from Portland on how to get started in the NFT space. The course teaches about the possibilities that this new market offers, but also the financial risks. “It's not just giving some kids in Brooklyn or in Flint, Michigan, some NFT tool, give them some Ether (a crypto currency) and let them run.”

“I think if we're going to teach it to people and have them be successful, the teaching must expand past how you mint on the blockchain, but what a really good campaign looks like and how people actually make money and the deeper conversation about audience and finance,” the creative adds.

Niki Selken recently had this conversation with Badiucao, a Chinese dissident artist who self-exiled to Australia. Niki guided the artists on his entry into the NFT space in February 2022. Badiucao launched a collection that called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing earlier this year.

“If I work with an artist like Badiucao, I'm minting on 'Ethereum', on platforms like 'SuperRare', big platforms, because he needs to make a lot of money to support his activist work against the Chinese communist party,” Niki Selken tells.

“NFTs will come and go, and they'll be gone in five years’ time.”

But there are also critics, people who don’t see NFTs having a transformative potential. Tom Abba, associate head of the department for research and scholarship at the University of the West of England is one of them. “I don't think selling the rights to say, ‘I own the digital certificate for this painting,’ is any less valid than only a JPEG of the painting. I don't think NFTs have solved that problem at all. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's a scam.”

The researcher has seen different technologies come into the arts and disappear again, without challenging existing ways. “NFTs will come and go, and they'll be gone in five years’ time,” the researcher believes. Tom Abba is an outspoken critic of the tokenisation of the art world and thinks NFTs should stay out of the classroom.

“Where do NFTs fit into a curriculum? Are they part of fine art? Are they graphic design, are they illustration, where do they lock in? That's part of the problematic nature of a new form. We're not going to teach you how to make NFTs. If you're interested in that we can absolutely guide you into the space, we can think about the kind of work you make and how that might operate, and we can find people who are conversant in technology who worked with different platforms. We try not to impose a kind of top-down curriculum that says, we will teach you NFTs in year two of your course, that's not necessarily helpful to anybody,” Tom Abba concludes.

The researcher sees the university’s primary obligation in preparing students for the challenges of the working world, giving them the skills to make a living and cover rent, rather than venturing into the crypto space.

“We noticed the growth of local scenes that were largely ignored by the traditional new media art discourse, such as Argentina, Turkey and Nigeria.”

Whether the researcher agrees or not, NFTs don’t seem to go away anytime soon and the interest in the technology is unbroken. Ankara University has just introduced a dedicated NFT course to its curriculum, ‘Introduction to NFT.’ The course is organised by the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Basic Art Education and teaches students about the technology and how they can develop their own art on the blockchain.

“We noticed the growth of local scenes that were largely ignored by the traditional new media art discourse, such as Argentina, Turkey and Nigeria,” Filippo Lorenzin of the Museum of Contemporary Digital Art. Artists from the global south are still underrepresented in the NFT space. US, Canada and the UK artists make up 73% of all sales in on the NFT marketspace ‘Nifty Gateway’ in 2021, research from ‘ArtTactic’ has found.

The high financial and ecological costs of operating on the Ethereum blockchain made developers and collectors look for alternatives. In March 2021, Brazilian developer Rafael Lima founded the alternative NFT marketplace ‘Hic Et Nuc.’ The marketplace runs on the Tezos blockchain. Tezos is built on a proof-of-stake system and uses less energy than Ethereum, making it cheaper for artists to mint and list their artworks. The project was an instant success but came to an abrupt halt just seven months into its existence, when founder Rafael Lima left the project. The NFT world was shaken up by the move. A couple of mirror sites have quickly popped up, trying to fill the void left by the original site.

"The works created to be enjoyed online are at the same time more and less accessible than traditional physical art: only by those who have the right tools can do it, an aspect on which the public often has no say." @fi_lor pic.twitter.com/vaedwt0lXM
— MoCDA: Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (@MOCDA_) April 8, 2022

Manchester based NFT marketplace 'KnownOrigin'

The marketplace 'Hic et Nunc' is build on the Tezos blockchain

'OpenSea' is the largest NFT market place in the world

Because all the information was distributed on the blockchain, collectors and artists were able to just list their works on another frontend (application). But the incident is a symbol of the volatility and uncertainty that still surrounds the NFT space. Unsolved questions of fraud, taxation, money laundering and the ecological costs still need to be addressed by the community and legislators. NFTs have given artists a tool to become more independent but old market mechanism and restrictions cling to the new market.

“I do believe that web3 is the future and blockchain will underline our lives for ever.”

“NFTs are an interesting intervention to the marketplace, but I think we've not scratched the surface of what the technology can do. If you ask for my opinion, it's being used for the most boring purpose imaginable,” says Tom Abba. The researcher hopes to see the space evolve to become something more and challenge the mechanisms of the traditional art market. “I want it to be something more interesting. I want the space to be a little richer and a little more responsive, but I'm waiting to see what happens.”

The future of the NFT market is depending on the community that keeps it alive, and any future developments in the metaverse and Web3. “NFTs as technology can grow as much as the public allows it,” says Filippo Lorenzin. The fact that major corporations are gaining more influence in the space and that sparks resistance. “I believe that this is a technology that can be rather detrimental if used in areas that do not need it. We have already seen electronic entertainment companies receiving negative feedback from the public when they announced the arrival of NFTs in future video games,” recalls the artistic director.

“The reason why NFTs received so much attention in art is because they allowed thousands of artists who were kept outside the market scene to become relevant and live with their art. From a commercial point of view, NFTs are the answer to the development of digital communication platforms and political social changes that culminated in 2021 and have probably come to stay,” says Filippo Lorenzin.

Artists and educator Niki Selken is happy about the developments: “I've seen folks who've been making money and creating audience and value and finally feeling valued for this great work they've been doing for years.”

“It’s good as an excuse to make something.” Entering the NFT space has given Gavin Strange a creative push. “It’ a good motivator because your art potentially can have a life. I think, as it gets more widely adopted and these spaces open up, they are easier to get into. Hopefully that will attract people who don't care about the technology, that just want to make great work. And if that great work can be owned by someone then that’s fantastic.”

Lee Ellis continues to be sceptical: “I don't know if it's still going to be around in 10 years.” Despite his success in translating his art to a completely new space and audience, the artist still feels like a newbie. “Every now and then I still watch stuff to try and learn what the hell I'm doing. But it's been quite a fun adventure and there is potential within the space to help quite a lot of people.”

Niki Selken agrees. Despite being confronted with the ugly site of the NFT space from time to time, the artist is excited for the future. “Even if this kind of falls apart a little bit, it will never fully go away. I do believe that web3 is the future and blockchain will underline our lives for ever.”