NFTs

I made an NFT for kicks a few months ago. (Just wanted to see how the process worked. Here it is:

That’s right. I’m officially a crypto bro. Of course, right now crypto is tanked, and my ~$80 worth of Ethereum I bought has more than halved in value.

Crypto is a weird one. NFTs, especially. Yet I think they’re both going to play a really important role in the future of technology. Not the role many people think, but an important role nonetheless.

People lately (especially last year) view art NFTs as investment properties. Which largely makes no sense. Or rather, makes only as much sense as your normal art investor, which is literally nothing new. Somehow we turned a bunch of finance bros into art enthusiasts by calling something fintech.

And then the fallout from the surge in interest hurt artists, when the whole point of NFTs was to empower them. Losers started stealing and minting NFTs of other people’s art, then profiting off them during the craze. NFTs could have helped digital artists own and monetize their art in a way previously unknown.

Instead, the thieves and ripoffs put a bad taste in every artists mouth, and it became nearly taboo for a self-respecting artist to participate in NFTs.

I personally internally groan a little every time I hear somebody say “I’m releasing a line of NFTs” as if being an NFT makes it special in and of itself.

The fact that it is an NFT is valueless. People gotta stop thinking that means something. It would be like saying “I painted this oil painting, and I own the intellectual property through copyright”. Okay dude. That’s literally the default option.

Owning it does nothing to make it more valuable. It only makes it more tradeable.

This is my 2022 advice for any artist or studio who works with digital forms—Mint everything you do as an NFT. Tell no one.

Don’t be the guy who thinks that any random idea is made special when it turns into an NFT. On the other hand, don’t be the artist who thinks that making NFTs is cringe or somehow a betrayal of an unwritten artists code.

Just own your work, on the blockchain and elsewhere. Don’t make a big fuss about it. When you get commissions, include the NFT at no extra cost. This will protect you and make your work more tradeable without you being “that guy” who is running a pre-launch campaign to generate interest in their money-grab NFT line.

It should be said that this post is aimed at art NFTs and digital art in particular. There are many other kinds of NFTs – when NFTs represent a contract that brings physical or real-world services or benefit – I fully support those NFTs.

Non-fungible tokens are literally just deeds. Contracts, if you will. This is the big role I think they’ll play in the tech world moving forward.

It’s true – I’m a crypto bro who supports NFTs. I could be wrong about the whole thing. But I don’t think so.