What Kind of Art Sells as NFTs?
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) form one of the fastest-growing sectors of the nascent crypto industry. NFT sales reached $17.7 billion in 2021, up from $82.5 million in 2020. However, in the first four months of 2022, NFT collectors have spent more than they did in the entirety of 2021.
The spike in the amount spent on NFTs highlights just how quickly the sector is growing. Now referred to as the “next gold mine” by many, the interest in NFTs is at an all-time high. Common questions for artists new to the subject are, what are NFTs? and what kind of art sells on NFT?
What are NFTs?
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that use blockchain to provide a public certificate of authenticity (PoA) to represent ownership for anything physical or non-physical, such as artwork, real estate, or collectable cards.
Although NFTs are sold as pictures, music, and videos that can be copied online, they contain digital data with unique identification codes that show the creator, as well as past and present owners. NFTs gain their value because they cannot be duplicated or recreated.
What Kind of Art Can Be an NFT?
The short answer is: any kind of art can be sold as a non-fungible token. These can be easily minted on NFT marketplaces and sold to willing buyers as soon as the artwork is available. Minting an NFT involves converting your art into crypto collections or digital assets recorded on the blockchain.
Digital art makes up the large chunk of NFTs currently sold on the market. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape, a collection of different ape-centric art, currently stand as the most popular and expensive NFT collections. In addition, collectables like the Cryptokitties and in-game items can also be sold as NFTs.
Traditional artists are now finding their way into the NFT space. Artists and painters who have amazing works can now mint drawings, sculptures, and paintings to be sold on NFT marketplaces.
The most prominent fear of aspiring NFT artists is the coding and high technical know-how that is so often linked with blockchain. Luckily, artists can easily use the powerful AI of NightCafe Studio to easily create AI-generated NFT art to sell as NFTs. Wondering how NightCafe AI works? In very easy steps, NightCafe helps artists turn create artworks from nothing but a text prompt. More impressively, the software is available for free to every artist looking to create the next best NFT.
Note that blockchains are immutable–they cannot change. Therefore, after minting your artwork as an NFT, it cannot be edited. However, you can opt to repeat the process, but it becomes an entirely new NFT.
Physical Artwork Can Also Be Sold as NFTs
Although digital art comprises the majority of non-fungible tokens today, physical artwork can be minted and sold online on marketplaces as NFTs. By linking physical artwork to non-fungible tokens, the authenticity of an artwork can easily be proved.
This is thanks to the unique cryptographic information stored within the digital version of the physical artwork. A great example is Beeple's Human One, a sculpture and NFT hybrid sold for $28.9 million at auction.
Another advantage of minting physical artwork as NFTs is that creators can keep track of their work. Unlike physical art, in which artists rarely know where their work ends up, creators can easily track their NFTs using data recorded on the blockchain.
NFT projects are now focusing on the tokenization of real-world items; non-fungible tokens are being used to represent real estate, products, and luxury goods. For example, NFTs are now being used as deeds, and they can be used to introduce the flexibility for purchasing a car or home.
How to Successfully Sell Your Art as an NFT
Although just about any kind of art can be minted and sold as an NFT, not every piece of art is guaranteed to turn the artist into an overnight millionaire. Just as with traditional physical art, the more exquisite and rare an artwork is, the more it is likely to be valued.
After minting your NFT, the next step would be to submit your work on an NFT marketplace, along with the listing price at which you want it to be sold. Some marketplaces will enable creators to promote their content to reach a wider audience.
In a Nutshell
Slowly but steadily, non-fungible tokens are transforming how artists around the world create and distribute their art. Using the technology, artists can create impossible-to-pirate digital versions of their physical and digital art, gaining more creative control over their contents. NFTs also help connect artists with enthusiastic and supportive collectors from around the world.