Blockchain and the arts: foes – or unlikely allies? 1

Abstract

Despite widespread cross-country support for the arts, artists have increasingly had to bear the burden of higher costs and face lower real wages in the labor market. However, the emergence of distributed ledger technologies has the potential to serve as a catalyst for revitalizing the arts by empowering artists with new tools for ensuring the protection of their intellectual property and receiving remuneration for their creative content. After beginning with institutional details about funding and the labor market in different parts of the arts, this chapter explores the use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse as tools for empowering artists and expanding their ability to reach audiences directly without as much reliance on centralized intermediaries who have traditionally extracted rents in the value chain. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the use of NFTs in the arts and their potential as a catalyst for providing greater financial sustainability to artists with proper context on the current challenges and limitations.