In 2021, a JPG file was auctioned for US$69 million by a digital artist, Mike Winkleman (Beeple). This record-breaking sale for purely digital artwork became a major catalyst for the recent trends around NFT arts.
The NFT arts market has continued to maintain its upward trend as artists and content creators are capturing this new wave of a Web3-based digital arts movement. However, amidst the growing market, there’s also a rising number of crimes and detractors that could hamper further industry growth.
Asia in the frontlines of NFT arts growth
NFT arts have become the most popular use case for NFTs as they provide artists with the opportunity to sell their creative pieces directly to buyers and earn income. In yet another record-breaking sale, digital artist, Pak, sold his NFT art for a whopping US$91.8 million.
Last year, the NFT market hit US$25 billion with sales of NFT arts being a major contributor. Also, earlier in January this year, OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace for NFT arts and other collectibles hit US$5 billion in monthly trading volume. It is also noteworthy to mention that Asia is currently the frontrunner in this global sensation. According to Chainalysis, Central and Southern Asia accounted for 35 per cent of the global NFTs traded last year.
CoinUnited, the largest NFT collector in Asia, has contributed to the region’s lead in the NFT space by purchasing over 10,000 NFT artworks to date, valued at over US$200 million. The worldwide surge behind NFTs reflects in the ability to create digital content such as memorabilia, algorithmically-generated artwork and even memes. Examples include high-valued NFTs such as Shocked Doge and The Legacy, a compilation of Floyd Mayweather’s rise to glory, owned by CoinUnited. Other top NFTs in their collection include BoredApe, Meebit, RTFKT Punk, Cool Cat, Pudgy Penguin, CloneX and a host of others.
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“Our passion for NFT arts, among many reasons, is that we believe in NFT technology and how it is boldly redefining the future of arts. Content creators are increasingly crafting and sharing more value through digital mediums, where NFTs offer the right technology and ownership models that are opening more doors for innovation,” says Angus Lo, CoinUnited Co-Founder.
Skeptics may call it a fad, but it’s clear, NFTs are here to stay. In the coming years, industry pioneers expect to witness more incorporation of NFTs among individuals as well as corporate sectors. However, there are critical factors to consider before this becomes a reality.
Rising crime amidst a surge in popularity
As with all new tech developments, detractors find various ways to facilitate crimes and malpractices. The NFT art marketplace is certainly not left out. There have been incessant calls made recently about counterfeit NFTs that have resulted in marketplace suspensions. And it’s only getting worse with fakes in the market.
In recent months, the NFT space has also come under fire for aiding criminals in laundering money through minting and selling NFTs, as well as enabling malicious parties to counterfeit NFTs and rob artists of their respective earnings.
NFTs, leveraging decentralised blockchain technology, empowers users with autonomy over their work that wasn’t otherwise available in the legacy art world. Although a number of artists have benefited from NFTs, there is a growing number of creators concerned with these challenges.
Artists have made complaints that scammers have stolen their creative works and minted them on NFT marketplaces. As an open-source technology, anyone can mint an NFT. A user could take an image from a creator’s page, mint it as their own product, and make significant profits from the sale long before the original creator is made aware of what’s taken place. The problem can quickly stack up when NFT marketplaces go on to rack up billions of dollars from counterfeit sales.
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Combating counterfeits and art frauds
DeviantArt, a long-standing community for digital artists, has sent 90,000 alerts about possible fraud to thousands of their users since taking the decision to monitor the blockchain for copied assets of creators in their community, company executives said. The company has increased its efforts in monitoring over four million NFTs that have been sold to see how many more counterfeits are in circulation. The number of alerts doubled from October to November 2021 and grew by 300 per cent from November to mid-December.
Relevant steps need to be taken to combat this major challenge in the industry. Steps that would provide lasting solutions and facilitate proper growth and positive innovation in the NFT space.
An initiative taken by Numbers Protocol, a decentralised photo network, is providing verification and tracking history for NFTs. Having acknowledged the loopholes in the NFT space, namely the lack of control over what assets are minted, the refusal to observe copyright laws, and the lack of overall transparency and verifiability in the space, Numbers Protocol has made it a priority to solve these issues.
Numbers Protocol has created the world’s first Web3 search engine for NFTs. With the search engine, users can upload an NFT image or video and proceed to view its verifiable history. This includes specific details like when it was first sold or how many pieces were created. This allows anyone to cross-check whether the NFTs sold in the marketplace are authentic, and can help prospective buyers to verify if the NFTs they own are truly unique.
Numbers Protocol’s search engine for NFTs has two key components: content-based and Web 3.0-based. As a content-based search engine, a user can upload a file without knowing its NFT identifier, and the result shows the history and other details associated with the file. The search engine uses the unique address generated to find key information associated with the content. The results provide verifiable information about the NFT, all provably secure through battle-tested encryption technologies.
“The centralisation of Web 2.0 has led to copyright issues, data manipulation and algorithm-based search results based on data profiles that continue to hinder what users search for. With information provided by the NFT search engine, users can better understand just how “unique” an NFT is and easily identify potential violations, such as multiple creator addresses,” says Sofia Yan, Co-founder and Chief of Growth Officer at Numbers Protocol.
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Where is the future of NFT arts headed?
China’s NFT market is predicted to reach US$4.64 billion by 2026 and this is expected to influence the global NFT marketplace in a positive direction. However, for the NFT market to continue its transition to the mainstream reality, it is important that clear rules are enforced to ensure that artists’ creative works are rightfully protected.
With the right solutions to combat ongoing challenges, artists and creators can be optimistic about capturing the opportunity to have true autonomy over their works and fairly monetise their creativity. These solutions, coupled with Asia’s bullish approach towards NFT arts could lead to a complete redefinition of the creator economy as we know it.
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The content was first published by The Human & Machine.
Image Credit: The Human & Machine
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