Malaysia-based NFTapir recently announced that they are looking to onboard 100 local artists over the next few weeks into their NFT marketplace. The platform is especially looking for contemporary artists who might be hesitant to enter the digital realm –due to the perceived complexities of the NFT space– as their solutions offer a simplified process that tackles the issues that artists are facing.

“There is a renaissance in the art scene where artists who are ready to embrace digitisation and showcase their artworks online are earning more than they ever have,” NFTapir Co-Founder Zang Tan explains in a press statement.

“We are excited to empower local artists on their journey into the metaverse and our goal is to decomplex the NFT journey thus allowing both artists and collectors to trade art with minimal prerequisite knowledge of blockchain technology. This further creates new opportunities for artists to continue to display their art digitally regardless of movement restrictions that have kept artists and collectors from physically trading at galleries throughout the pandemic.”

NFTapir is developed on the Polygon Blockchain based on feedback gathered from the Malaysian artist community. These artists demand a marketplace that can help them navigate the volatility of selling artwork in the digital space while also providing a near-zero gas fee experience for both the artists and collectors.

NFTapir also stated that it is the first curated NFT marketplace in Malaysia that supports the PHYGITAL framework. This means that, regardless of the mediums that the artists use, every piece can be digitised and listed as NFT. In addition to that, collectors can also own the physical form of the artwork and have it delivered upon request.

With their gallery currently running on exhibition mode, NFTapir aims to enable its marketplace function in April once they hit the goal of onboarding 100 artists.

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Behind the paintings

A self-funded platform, the NFTapir core team consists of Zang Tan, JS Tan and Hanzo Chin.

In an email interview with e27, Zang Tan explains how the platform began when the NFTapir team observed how the watercolour arts community in Malaysia was highly active while their market access to collectors was very limited. This is especially the case during the COVID-19 pandemic when the lockdown measure as implemented in the country pushed artists to take their works to platforms such as Facebook Groups to conduct digital sales. This effort is certainly not sustainable.

“By digitising their artworks, artists now have access to a 24/7 digital gallery to showcase their works. In addition to that, there is better business resiliency in case of any future lockdowns as traditional means of showcases would be affected. Other benefits of digitising their artworks also include Better Preservation of Value, Record of Ownership and Royalties function which are all enabled by the beauty of blockchain technology that is seen as a value add for artists,” he says.

But it was the US$69 million transactions of Beeple artwork in March last year that inspired them to build this platform.

” … as a collector of some renowned pieces by Khaw Sia, Tan Choo Ghee, Yeong Seak Ling, it got us to start thinking how physical artworks could also be a part of the NFT realm –as it was primarily catered towards Digital Arts at that time,” Zan Tan says. “Over the months we had engaged with the community, primarily speaking to artists and collectors of fine arts where the consistent problem statement we identified was ‘they were highly interested in NFTs’ but wasn’t sure how to get into it … with much intricacies for the end-users to learn this new knowledge depending on their digital maturity level.”

The team then introduced NFTapir after noticing this window of opportunity.

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When asked about the specific issues that they want to solve, NFTapir stated that their main goal as a platform is to “decomplex” the NFT journey for its users. They detailed the challenges that the users are facing –and the solutions they offer– in the following image:

“By offering true-gas-free minting, we have reduced the clutter typically required by artists to mint their very first works. With NFTapir, there is no need to scout for a crypto exchange to purchase tokens which usually involves familiarising with another complex tool … where we only require artists … to set up a wallet address (using Metamask), apply for onboarding through a simple form. Artists that are successfully onboarded will have their accounts enabled for true-gas-free-minting where the Create button shall appear after they login,” Zang Tan elaborates.

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“True-gas-free-minting was coined as opposed to ‘lazy minting’ –a blockchain method commonly adopted by major marketplaces– whereby NFTapir will mint the NFT tokens on the artist’s behalf. It is sent to the artist for their safekeeping, empowering them with full ownership and authority which makes us truly different,” he continues.

Engaging the community

When it comes to onboarding artists on the platform, NFTapir views collaboration with the arts community as the core of what they are doing. It is committed to monitoring industry trends and is working with leading associations to conduct focused events to help onboard artists onto the ecosystem.

For the year, they will continue on focusing on onboarding more artists.

“Our focus for the year will be to onboard the artists in Malaysia, mainly targeting the watercolour, oil paintings and local crafts to digitise their artworks, giving them the digital NFT certificate. Allowing them to enjoy all the benefits … and to reach a wider audience by having an NFT attached to their artwork onto the blockchain,” Zang Tan closes. “Moving forward, we will be looking for potential partners and investors in helping us with the mission to expand regionally into other countries bringing the mission of digitising crafts globally.”

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Image Credit: NFTapir

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