Features / 22 posts found
Instagram NFTs Are Here… What Does That Mean for Artists?
It’s official: Instagram (IG) is diving head-first into the NFT ecosystem. With the recent launch of new in-app NFT features, a select number of influential creators were greenlighted to start interacting with blockchain tech on the larger-than-life social media platform. Although Meta originally announced plans to create an Instagram NFT marketplace back in March, these latest features lean more towards content sharing rather than commerce. And why shouldn’t they? Considering that Twitter and Discord have proven to be the stomping grounds of the NFT community, some would say that IG taking the plunge into the NFT space is overdue. Additionally, […]
This Creator Is Building an Entire Web3 Ecosystem Around Coffee and Literature
In 2022, NFTs no longer revolve around the simple dualities of art and money. Although it’s true that artists and collectors continue to lead the space, both making and losing millions on a regular basis, the nonfungible ecosystem has changed. Birthed as a niche internet microcosm, the NFT market has since become a multi-billion-dollar industry. And this market has grown far beyond the constraints of an “NFT” blanket term. Within this industry now lives a wide variety of subsections that continue to gain prominence as the months go by. More recently, we’ve witnessed a diverse range of content creators and owners finding […]
The 10 Most Expensive NFT Collections and Why They’re Valuable
It’s easy to forget quite how young the NFT space is. One of the most popular projects out there, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, only came onto the scene in 2021. That year, the market exploded, with nearly $41 billion of crypto spent on NFT marketplaces — CryptoPunk #7523 sold for $11.7 million, Bored Ape #3562 sold for more than $1.6 million, and Cool Cat #1490 sold for $1.4 million. These projects might have seen significant financial successes, but which of the world’s most expensive NFT collections also have staying power? We’re here to find out. We examined the most expensive […]
The Gold Standard Exhibition: Giving Shine to Asian-Americans in NFTs
What does it mean to uplift and empower underrepresented artists? It entails much more than just giving them a platform. We must dig deeper, and actively spread the word about their work, pay respect to their journeys and their potential, and support their creative intelligence. This May, in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, SuperRare and Drue Kataoka are doing just that. The leading NFT marketplace and artist/technologist/activist and CEO Kataoka have teamed up to create a new exhibition entitled #TheGoldStandard to spotlight the vast contributions of Asian American artists in the digital art world. A flyer […]
The NFT Space Needs to Do More to Uplift Black Artists
It’s no secret that white men make up the majority of crypto communities — after all, the “crypto bro” stereotype has been around for years. As of 2022, upwards of 70 percent of the world’s cryptocurrency accounts are held by men, with 62 percent of that total being white men, according to a report from Morning Consult. Considering the crypto sphere gave birth to the NFT ecosystem, it’s easy to understand how this demographic has ultimately trickled over to our new blockchain-based creative economy. Anthony Gibbs, founder of The Black Arts Project, noted these systemic issues with representation in the […]
Is Scarcity in NFTs a Boon, a Problem, or Both?
In 2018, Roham Gharegozlou of Dapper Labs, the Canadian studio behind the widely successful CryptoKitties project, gave a speech in Vienna that revolved around a single theme: life is non-fungible. Applying this concept to digital assets via blockchain technology, he argued, would soon change the way people view and interact with the idea of ownership in an increasingly digital world. Fast-forward a few years, and this idea has not only taken hold, it has taken off. The NFT boom that started in earnest in 2021 continues, despite seeing some pockets of slowdown in recent weeks and debatable claims that the […]
NFT Flippers: Tales of Woe and Triumph
In an unprecedented bull market where 65 percent of all secondary sales deliver a profit, it’s a good time to be a flipper. Hop into any Discord and you’ll hear stories of over 1,000 percent gains overnight. Even famous NFT owners are getting in on it; Steve Aoki, for example, flipped his CryptoPunk #6473 in one month for a 235 ETH profit (over $900,000 USD at the time). Consider these stats from The Chainalysis 2021 NFT Report: 20% of the user addresses on OpenSea account for 80% of secondary NFT sales 5% of all active addresses account for 80% of […]
With NFTs Any Type of IP Can Be Monetized
The NFT ecosystem has come a long way in the last two years. From being a niche internet microcosm to becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry, if one thing has become clear recently, it’s that NFTs are going to have a major impact on society for at least the next few years. Just as the market has changed since Beeple made international headlines with his $69 million Christie’s auction, so too have the diverse ways that NFTs are being used to monetize intellectual property (IP). Although digital art has always been at the core of the NFT space, music, sports memorabilia, and […]
TikTok Meets NFTs? What User-Generated Content Might Look Like in Web3
We were all sufficiently surprised back in Sept. 2021 when TikTok announced the release of its very own NFT project. While the endeavor seemed to crash and burn only a few months later, short-form content (like Vines and TikToks) is starting to become a hot topic in Web3. Of course, this is almost surely due to the fact that during a global pandemic, digestible content became king. So much so that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company reported a 45 percent increase in growth only about a year after COVID-19 forced the world indoors. Now it seems user-generated content (UGC) is on […]
The Best Way for Writers to Join the NFT Space? Digital Merchandise
Much has been said about how NFTs have given artists and musicians alike novel avenues to sustain themselves financially, as well as connect with fans and patrons. But what about writers? In November 2021, legendary director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino tried entering the NFT space by auctioning off images of handwritten pages from his original Pulp Fiction screenplay. Miramax quickly nixed Tarantino’s plans, claiming copyright ownership of the film’s screenplay and pursuing legal actions. So, what’s the best way for a published author to sell their work as an NFT collection (you know, without getting sued)? The answer is surprisingly […]