The artists, collectors, and sellers betting big on the blockchain.
What Is the Meaning of All This Money?
A series about the ever-more-chaotic future of finance.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The collision ofNFTs and artis not, strictly speaking, new.
We raised some money never enough and built a set of tools that are similar to whats happening now.
We could get some traction on the artists side, but there was no market.
People did not understand it.
In its first year, it averaged about $8,000 a month in sales.
By the second year, $100,000 a month.
These are not numbers that the traditional art market cares to ignore.
But proponents of the world say the future is already here.
Here, six of them, from top sellers to shadowy collectors, weigh in on the current boom.
The culture of cryptoart collecting is a personal one.
My collector and I know each other now through the entire process of collecting my art.
He is anonymous, but we do have meetings.
TheMars Houseis the largest sale Ive ever made.
Theres no one thats going to intercept it or block it; its not going to get burned.
No one can destroy our ideas; it will be out there, and its decentralized.
.During the sale, I felt like Pandora at some points.
I felt like Faust at other points.
I felt like Michael Jordan.
(Were still workshopping it, he says of the title.
Its a little clunky.)
I was haunted by Beeple on my Instagram but more haunted by meme accounts reposting his images.
With the Beeple sale, it was something that the business side had a lot of appetite for.
During the sale, I felt astonishment.
I felt like Pandora at some points.
I felt like Faust at other points.
I felt like Michael Jordan.
Everybody else was brand new.
Look at Justin Sun.
That was his first transaction with Christies.
Its a novelty thing theres a degree of FOMO.
Youll see people dipping their toes into the NFT world and then quickly exiting.
Beeple and his ilk are not those artists.
They have a very populist aesthetic.
But this movement has nothing to do with Donald Judd or minimalism or the concerns of the art-historical canon.
Its a totally different beast.
Nobodys neutral on this issue.
A lot of people are shivering in their boots.
Now theres a lot of subterfuge and a lot of cloak and dagger.
With the blockchain, thats no longer a hoop that people have to jump through.
The bodies are buried in plain sight.
.You have to think like George R.R.
Tolkien youre building a world that you oughta continue to grow and develop into a fully realized project.
The NFTs mostly featured WarNymph, a winged-baby avatar the Bouchers created using photogrammetry scans of Grimes herself.
Its gone through so many different models and evolutions that it doesnt have any of Grimess bone structure anymore.
The tattoos are the thing that identifies it as her.
We were going to do an art show last year that was going to be an introduction to WarNymph.
COVID shut that down.
To us, the art was uninteresting and crypto-oriented.
It was a natural fit.
Its still new, and the dust hasnt settled.
Ive got a backlog of art I could drop as NFTs, but Im holding off.
You have to think like George R.R.
Tolkien youre building a world that you gotta continue to grow and develop into a fully realized project.
Doing these random drops that have no meaning is a very Instagram mentality.
.With NFTs, the community can rally around it like a scoreboard.
Painting was my first love and escape.
The traditional art world, I dont know how to navigate it.
In crypto, everybodys in the same spot.
I was just reaching out to people, asking the OGs.
Anonymous or not, we still can get in touch.
We launched Aku on February 21, a little bit before the boom happened.
It was tremendous we sold a million dollars in one minute.
So 48 hours before the release, they got together and rallied people behind Aku.
With NFTs, the communitycan rally around it like a scoreboard.
Thats why I think you see these prices that are a lot higher than for a physical painting.
Its because you have an actual way to see your ROI.
.People think of us as just some art collectors that want to invest in NFTs.
Were investing in the vision of the artist.
Its founding member agreed to speak anonymously.
People think of AOI as just some art collectors that want to invest in NFTs.
We are, but thats not really what were trying to do here.
Were investing in the vision of the artist.
Every piece that we purchase, we love to speak to them.
I do believe that NFTs are a good medium of the transfer of wealth.
The state of the world at the moment is like techno punks meets the art world.
But were not here to make money, and were not a profit-making entity.
.Im like,Wow, I can fall in love again.
The final price: $97,750.
Its an old problem how do you validate a digital file on a digital medium?
For example, I make lots of drawings on the iPad.
It doesnt have a physical way to be.
And its always been ignored.
For a long time, weve been scanning everything in my studio.
Its all digital anyway.
The way I approach NFTs is the same way I would approach a physical sculpture.
For digital work, its about how you take care of your data, how you compress things.
But the aesthetic angles logically move in.
Im just exploring this, but at times I feel almost relieved.
It just makes the whole thing bigger.
He didnt get it.
She was very excited.
To her, this mattered more than getting something tangible.
Thats where my friend understood what I tried to tell him the whole afternoon, thestoryof it all.
It doesnt matter where it takes place.
