Non-Fungible Tokens were unknown territory for many but came to the fore with the $69 million sale of Beeple at Christie’s in 2021. Since then, a lot has happened in the world of NFTs, especially in the art world and on the art market. The main problem that this article seeks to address is the lack of an overview of the tangle of NFTs in the art world. It is therefore useful to take a bird’s-eye view of the phenomenon. The NFT puts digital art in a different perspective and raises questions about decentralization, sustainability, and copyright. This article will give a brief overview of the history of the NFT in the art market, as well as definitions and insights helpful for understanding the role of NFTs in the art world. The popularization of digital media and the never-ending digitalization are factors that need to be considered. As it caused a small but substantial rupture in the art world during and after COVID-19, this article also considers the future role of the NFT in the arts.
Abstract As non-fungible tokens (NFTs) become more commonly collected, questions arise as to the rights owned by purchasers of NFTs. Do NFTs fall under the following categories: real or personal properties; securities or commodities; or copyright works? Many scholars have gone into great detail in these respects, but not looked at the NFT marketplaces on which NFTs are purchased. They have argued that rights in NFTs are analogous to rights in property, securities and copyright’s exclusive bundle of rights, among other things. In this article, I go further to examine selected marketplaces OpenSea and Rarible’s user policies and interfaces, to garner insight on the rights NFT purchasers have. I also examine the latest developments, including cases decided on NFTs, as well as practical developments on the marketplaces, including the introduction of selected licences for NFT projects. Thereafter, I conclude on the rights NFT purchasers hold, the relevance of the copyright system and ultimately, what could support the flourishing of NFT marketplaces.
Desde su espectacular aparición en el sistema del arte en 2021, los non-fungible tokens o NFT han acaparado la atención de investigadores del campo de la historia y el mercado del arte, de las ciencias sociales, así como de todos los agentes del sistema del arte. Este artículo estudia las relaciones con los NFT de un conjunto de artistas visuales españoles participantes en la feria ARCO Madrid en 2020, es decir, la última edición antes de su irrupción en 2021 en el mercado del arte. Así, mediante la elaboración de una encuesta online realizada en 2023, se analiza el impacto de la llegada de esta tecnología en su práctica artística. Los resultados aportan información tanto cualitativa como cuantitativa que demuestra la aún escasa penetración de los NFT en 2023 entre el conjunto de artistas seleccionado, al tiempo que explora las principales barreras que dificultan la incorporación a su trabajo.
This study delves into the burgeoning intersection of NFTs and the museum sector. It examines the transformative potential of NFTs in redefining art curation, ownership, and accessibility. The paper presents a comprehensive background on the rise of NFTs, their technological underpinnings, and their cultural and economic impact on museums. A Decision Matrix Mechanism is proposed to assist museums in evaluating the strategic fit of NFT initiatives. The paper discusses the multifaceted factors influencing NFT adoption, including technological readiness, legal frameworks, ethical considerations, and market dynamics. It underscores the importance of a nuanced approach that aligns with each museum's mission and the evolving digital landscape.
Nathier Abrahams, Pitso Tsibolane, Jean-Paul Van Belle
Digital art has many major pitfalls, ranging from issues around tracking ownership to piracy.Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can solve these issues and bring new benefits, such as access to larger markets.Despite this, South Africa's digital artists have slowly adopted NFTs.This research aims to understand the values-based perceptions of South African digital artists toward NFTs.Fifteen South African digital artists were interviewed using semi-structured interviews guided by the updated Holbrook's Typology of Consumer Value framework.Ten positive perceptions, three negative perceptions, three risks and one benefit were identified, explored and analyzed using the framework.This research can assist digital artists and other stakeholders in the NFT ecosystem to understand the values-based perceptions of South African digital artists.It can be used to help assist decisionmakers, artists, intermediaries and other stakeholders in South Africa and potentially elsewhere.Additionally, the validated and updated Typology of Consumer Value can benefit researchers using this framework in future research.
Vivian Ziemke, Benjamin Estermann, Roger Wattenhofer, Ye Wang
In the evolving landscape of digital art, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a groundbreaking platform, bridging the realms of art and technology. NFTs serve as the foundational framework that has revolutionized the market for digital art, enabling artists to showcase and monetize their creations in unprecedented ways. NFTs combine metadata stored on the blockchain with off-chain data, such as images, to create a novel form of digital ownership. It is not fully understood how these factors come together to determine NFT prices. In this study, we analyze both on-chain and off-chain data of NFT collections trading on OpenSea to understand what influences NFT pricing. Our results show that while text and image data of the NFTs can be used to explain price variations within collections, the extracted features do not generalize to new, unseen collections. Furthermore, we find that an NFT collection's trading volume often relates to its online presence, like social media followers and website traffic.
The market for non-fungible token (NFT) art is expected to reach USD 44.2 billion in 2021 and increase by 67.57 percent in 2022, revolutionizing the relationship between artists, collectors, and investors. Despite this, concerns regarding the environmental impact of blockchain technology’s high energy consumption persist. NFT art transactions will continue to generate significant carbon emissions after Ethereum’s “Merge” to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system in September 2022, rendering many low-carbon solutions obsolete and necessitating further research into post-Merge alternatives. This study identifies solutions in the NFT art market, such as carbon neutrality, lazy minting, alternative consensus mechanisms, Layer 2 solutions and policy interventions. Carbon neutrality is achieved through investments in renewable energy or carbon credits to mitigate emissions generated by NFT art transactions. Lazy minting reduces energy consumption by postponing the creation of NFT art until a buyer is secured. In the NFT art ecosystem, alternative consensus mechanisms such as Proof of Authority (PoA) and Proof of Spacetime (PoST) reduce energy consumption. By offloading transactions from the primary blockchain, Layer 2 solutions enhance scalability and reduce energy consumption. Carbon taxes and energy consumption levies are examples of policy interventions that promote cleaner energy sources in the NFT art market. This study will explore the role of artists, collectors, galleries, and other significant players in encouraging environmentally sustainable practices in the NFT art market. In addition, it will investigate the effect of prominent NFT art sales on carbon emissions and the adoption of eco-friendly alternatives. By integrating and optimizing current carbon reduction strategies, the NFT art market can continue to flourish while reducing its environmental impact. The study emphasizes the significance of implementing a comprehensive strategy that incorporates multiple solutions that are tailored to the specific challenges of the NFT art market.
This article is about the role of cryptocurrencies, for example, decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in the international art market. These are cryptocurrencies which can be used to work with local governments to deliver non-state-funded consultancy in, for example, funding bid writing or community risk assessment. Self-polycentric and cause-based DAOs typically focus on actively listening to their token owners, utilizing the group’s skills under a transparent incentive structure fostering trust. This article delivers a critical evaluation of DAOs as an organisational management structure and business operations vehicle. This evaluation considers DAOs’ utility in supplying goods and services, through the critical lens of facilitating the international art market. The objective of this article is to raise wider awareness and understanding of DAOs as a legal entity. This paper acts to introduce the uninitiated to the business, societal value and legal uncertainties of DAOs and NFTs. DAOs are internet-based organisations built upon a set of instructions presented in and controlled by a computer programme, i.e., a smart contract. Effectively, DAOs are an artificial, electronic, online, digital technology entity, with no physical form.
The development of crypto has resulted in NFT (non-fungible token) derivation. Artists began to explore the NFT market with its potential. NFT artists have different ways to get engagement and establish themselves in the world of NFT, whether in terms of artwork substance or in the social field. This study aims to deconstruct the actors behind NFT artists to elucidate the visual style and the social engagement of artists in the world of NFT. The method used in this study is a qualitative approach with data validation from interviews and NFT artwork samples. The data was subsequently processed using actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze and trace the actors behind the NFT artists. Two Indonesian artists, namely Angga Tantama and Mufti Prianka, became the study cases in this research. The result of this study shows heterogeneous actors who support the artists in their work's substance and social engagement. In the case of Mufti Prianka, NFTs influenced him to explore the possibilities of creating digital artworks, whereas for Angga, NFT platforms became one of his well-established channels to publish artworks. Based on their networks, the two Indonesian artists studied have different approaches and motivations in creating and engaging with NFTs.Proses kreatif dua seniman NFT Indonesia dalam perspektif teori jaringan aktorPerkembangan kripto telah menghasilkan derivasi NFT (non-fungible token). Para seniman mulai menjajaki pasar NFT dengan potensinya. Seniman NFT memiliki cara yang berbeda untuk mendapatkan keterlibatan dan memantapkan diri di dunia NFT baik dari segi substansi karya seni maupun dalam bidang sosial. Gaya visual dalam kategori ini bervariasi dengan seniman yang berbeda yang merupakan pencipta di belakangnya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendekonstruksi aktor di balik seniman NFT untuk menjelaskan gaya visual dan keterlibatan sosial seorang seniman di dunia NFT. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pendekatan kualitatif dengan validasi data dari wawancara dan sampel karya seni NFT. Data tersebut selanjutnya diolah menggunakan teori jaringan aktor (ANT) untuk menganalisis dan menelusuri aktor di balik seniman NFT. Dua seniman Indonesia menjadi studi kasus dalam penelitian ini, yaitu Angga Tantama dan Mufti Prianka. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan aktor heterogen yang mendukung seniman dalam substansi karya dan keterlibatan sosialnya. Dalam kasus Mufti Prianka, NFT memengaruhinya untuk mengeksplorasi kemungkinan dalam menciptakan karya seni digital, sedangkan pada Angga, platform NFT menjadi salah satu salurannya yang mapan untuk mempublikasikan karya seni. Berdasarkan jaringan mereka, dua seniman Indonesia yang diteliti memiliki pendekatan dan motivasi yang berbeda dalam menciptakan dan terlibat dengan NFT.
Reporting on the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) ecosystem overwhelmingly focuses on the community that drove its growth and price volatility, gaining widespread media attention in 2021. This overlooks the communities developing novel creative practices on NFT platforms. Interviews with 16 creatives utilizing NFTs reveal a vast Art World: networks of distinct communities maturing into cooperative ecosystems with unique artistic subcultures, philosophies, and interactions. We observe unique qualities of these decentralized distribution platforms and identify patterns of activity comparable to those of traditional art worlds. We identify how aspects of these systems might subvert, or replicate, existing systems of power, value, and access. The impacts of policy and platform design on online creative communities in the NFT Art World carry valuable lessons for developers of digital interventions into the creative industry, exemplifying pertinent considerations for the future of creative labor and cooperation online.
The popularity of Non-fungible Tokens is reshaping the Internet, digital assets and content. Many cultural sectors worldwide have switched and proposed using NFT technology to enhance the liquidity of financialised art assets. Numerous companies are trying to take advantage of the rapid growth of the NFT markets to increase their competitiveness. Although digital artwork provides numerous technical advantages, few design practices are available for Luoshan Shadow’s NFT virtual creative products. This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing the digital design of the Luoshan shadow by NFT technology. We conducted a thematic analysis of the comments and suggestions given by designers and non-geneticists. Data of 185 designers, consumers, and non-geneticists indicated the main concerning themes; i) copyright and security issues; ii) innovation of art form and content; iii) new presentation, and iv) benefits from Non-fungible Tokens technology. These findings may provide experience for Luoshan shadow art to start the layout of digital creative design in the context of the much-needed NFT market and to organically combine its digital derivatives with physical derivatives to achieve joint development.
Abstract— This scholarly seminar paper examines the utilization of NFTs that are stored in IPFS for the purpose of identifying exclusive collector items, particularly a dress that is limited edition. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) leverage blockchain technology to establish and authenticate ownership. Through storage on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), their accessibility and legitimacy can be independently validated without dependence on any centralized server. This academic paper delineates the systematic approach involved in generating and disseminating Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for garments, scrutinizes the advantages and constraints associated with the application of NFTs for identifying collectibles, and accentuates the prospect for additional exploration and advancement in this domain. The employment of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) presents a distinctive opportunity for establishing authentication and confirmation of custody with respect to corporeal properties. However, issues like deceit and the widespread integration of blockchain technology require further consideration.Abstract— This scholarly seminar paper examines the utilization of NFTs that are stored in IPFS for the purpose of identifying exclusive collector items, particularly a dress that is limited edition. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) leverage blockchain technology to establish and authenticate ownership. Through storage on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), their accessibility and legitimacy can be independently validated without dependence on any centralized server. This academic paper delineates the systematic approach involved in generating and disseminating Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for garments, scrutinizes the advantages and constraints associated with the application of NFTs for identifying collectibles, and accentuates the prospect for additional exploration and advancement in this domain. The employment of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) presents a distinctive opportunity for establishing authentication and confirmation of custody with respect to corporeal properties. However, issues like deceit and the widespread integration of blockchain technology require further consideration.
In 2021, the concept of NFTs gained worldwide attention when a digital artist known as ‘Beeple’ sold his work Everydays: The First 5000 Days for 69 million US dollars at Christie’s, placing him among the top three living artists by sale value (Kastrenakes 2021). Since then, “non-fungible token” (or “NFT”) has rapidly become a high-scoring term on Google Trends and there has been corresponding growth in the number of artists, collectors, and platforms dealing with NFTs.Because of the many NFT platforms, the enormous volume of NFTs, the involvement of various cryptocurrencies, the fluctuating prices, and unpredictability of trends, navigating the NFT art market is very complicated. In an attempt to engage in this new sphere of speculation (and to speculate about it), we opened a physical NFT Shop at an abandoned gas station. Besides NFT art, we offered conversation and warm coffee to visitors. Surprisingly, we found almost everyone we met had heard about NFTs, although few demonstrated any in-depth knowledge. Our NFT Shop was expressly concerned with displaying only ‘clean’ NFTs, thereby underlining the environmental impact of typical blockchain technology. Tezos, a cryptocurrency known as a clean and eco-friendly ‘crypto’, is gaining popularity in the NFT art market as an alternative to Ethereum, which has a high carbon footprint (McDonald 2021) and high minting cost. According to Memo Akten’s A guide to eco-friendly CryptoArt, the cost of transactions in Ethereum fluctuates between $100-$1000 (Akten 2021), which is in stark contrast to Tezos, where exchange fees are currently below a dollar. The high energy consumption of blockchain has generated strong opposition, especially among artists. Thus, many alternative NFT platforms such as objkt and fx(hash) use Tezos and brand themselves as an eco-friendly and affordable marketplaces.Despite the availability of relatively clean cryptos, many digital artists prefer not to be associated with CryptoArt of any kind. At the same time, the general audience for art largely assumes that all digital art is NFT art. From the perspective of digital artists, it is difficult to say whether NFTs are a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, the art market has become receptive to digital formats, so many artists now have the opportunity to make a living from their art. On the other hand, there remains much that seems ‘unclean’ about NFT markets, although all transactions are entirely transparent. In this context, this paper and our art project NFT Shop aim to offer a framework for making sense of the NFT marketplaces and thus help to demystify the concepts of NFT and related platforms.
Este artigo analisa a ideologia, os usos e as implicações do NFT (Non-Fungible Token) para a economia da música. O NFT resgata a ideologia da desintermediação das relações econômicas ao prometer retornos financeiros mais altos ao artista, decorrentes de sua conexão direta com o consumidor. A tecnologia, no entanto, reorienta a carreira dos artistas, bem como sua relação com os fãs. Informado pela filosofia anarcocapitalista, o uso do NFT tem condicionado artistas a verem suas obras como ativos valorizáveis, cabendo aos fãs o papel de investidores. A partir da análise bibliográfica, investigamos: (1) a ideologia da desintermediação na economia da música, (2) a inspiração anarcocapitalista no desenvolvimento de tecnologias financeiras, como o NFT, (3) o uso do NFT no mercado de música e (4) o papel dos fãs em uma economia da música financeirizada. Como conclusão, apontamos como o uso de tecnologias como o NFT faz parte de outro momento da indústria da música que pode ser rotulado como pós-streaming.
The norms and systems of the fashion industry tend to support a small class of brands and designers creating fashion while the public takes on the role of passive consumer. The rise of digital fashion and a new sector of ‘digital-only’ fashion brands now provides unique ways for consumers to interact with fashion online, from buying wearables for digital gaming avatars, to wearing a digital dress on social media, to investing in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – digital assets based on blockchain technology, bought and sold online. Digital-only fashion brands are reimagining the hierarchical relationships between brand and consumer towards one of empowerment and mutual value via decentralized co-design platforms. Such endeavours allow brands to build community and challenge the ownership and authorship conventions in the fashion industry. Co-design has been widely used by fashion brands as a strategy that promotes involvement from the public/consumer in creating customized and made-to-order products and experiences. Using established theories of participatory art, an approach to making art which engages the public and communities in the creative process, this article explores how digital-only fashion brands are creating more participatory models of fashion co-design. To confirm and further explore this theory and to consider how a participatory model is achieved in practice, a qualitative case study was conducted on The Fabricant Studio, a collaborative digital fashion atelier. The findings reveal new methods of co-design used by digital fashion brands that allow consumers to design and monetize their craft while retaining creators’ ownership. The application of the theory also underscores the importance of creative control and decision-making in the fashion co-design process to ensure it is truly participatory vs. interactive. The Fabricant’s methods to educate users through accessible platforms contribute to the diversification of co-designers and digital fashion designers in general.
<p align="justify">Indonesian Central Agency on Statistics notes the decline of national economic status by 2,07% in 2020 and Dewi, on the same year, reported its effect to the world of art and painting investments. This research carry that problem and tries to look at Non-Fungible Token (NFT) as an advanceable means to increase artists’ economic welfare, especially after the NFT trend at the start of 2022. Specifically, this research focuses on artists found on Braga Street, Bandung City, as a first step in exploring the opportunity of NFT in increasing economic welfare. This article aims to analyze and formulating the potential of NFT in increasing artists’ economic welfare by way of in-depth interview as the main method.</p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: NFT, Local Artists, Bandung, Economic Welfare</p>
The future iteration of the internet is often branded as Web3, claimed to be a decentralising phase of its evolution, a reaction to the centralisation in the Web 2.0 era. This upcoming version of the internet, afforded by distributed ledgers and blockchain technologies, is sometimes also called the "Web of Value". It highlights the expectation that as much of the content and services on the internet get “tokenised”, which enables their trade and related operations of ‘value creation’. It is claimed that as the value of everything on the internet becomes more salient, conditioning new kinds of economic activities, relationships and forms of organising. In this article we discuss these expectations as imaginaries, the implications of which vary based on how they are framed or interpreted by different economic theories. More specifically, the article discusses the interpretations deriving from neoclassical economics, classical economics, heterodox economics and public value theory. We demonstrate significant differences between these interpretations and how they are offering competing imaginaries on the future internet.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are non-interchangeable assets, usually digital art, which are stored on the blockchain. Preliminary studies find that female and darker-skinned NFTs are valued less than their male and lighter-skinned counterparts. However, these studies analyze only the CryptoPunks collection. We test the statistical significance of race and gender biases in the prices of CryptoPunks and present the first study of gender bias in the broader NFT market. We find evidence of racial bias but not gender bias. Our work also introduces a dataset of gender-labeled NFT collections to advance the broader study of social equity in this emerging market.
Paul Griffiths, Carlos J. Costa, Nuno Fernandes Crespo
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent a multibillion-dollar global market. While considerable speculation exists about the future utility of NFTs, there has been limited research into the consumer behaviors of market participants. This research paper examines the motivations of NFT buyers through the lens of self-determination theory. Using a sample of 482 participants, the authors tested a conceptual framework to better understand both NFT buyers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. This study expands the literature on NFTs in three different ways: i) it is the first study, as far as we know, to focus exclusively on NFT buyers and their motivations in purchasing NFTs; ii) it explores a variety of potential motivations theorized in the literature; and iii) it tests the expected future value of NFTs as both a motivation and as a moderator for NFT buyers. The authors determined that intrinsic motivation had the most substantial effect on purchase intention, and the expectations of NFTs’ future value positively moderated the effect of amotivation on purchase intention. In contrast, high expectations of future value moderated the effect of external regulation on purchase intention. The results suggest that NFT buyers are not as impacted by potential social or monetary gain as often characterized in the academic literature but behave more like traditional buyers of luxury goods.
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Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Since the emerge of NFT artworks in 2019, countless users have begun to flood the NFT trading market. As a non-fungible token, NFT not only provides a new art form, but also can provide a new way for the copyright protection of current artworks. This paper will choose literature analyzing method and comparative analysis method. A detailed analysis will be given to explain the operation and related copyright protection of mainstream NFT trading platforms at home and abroad. Combined with the analysis of actual domestic NFT transactions and the situation of copyright protection, from the three levels of law, technology and management, this paper proposes countermeasures and suggestions for digital art copyright management and protection which based on NFT, that is, non-fungible tokens. We expect to analyze the mainstream NFT trading platforms at home and abroad comprehensively and objectively, summarize their characteristics and commonalities, enrich the application of NFT in the field of copyright protection, provide reference opinions for the construction of the domestic NFT copyright protection environment, and promote the development and prosperity of the cultural industry.