No longer able to rely on the cryptocurrency market to sustain sales, NFT artists don't give up, but they have to lower their financial expectations and become more creative.
Why it matters: Artists have been trying to pay their bills for a long time, and when the NFT craze started last year, many hoped that the technology would provide a long-term solution.
Fast Payment : NFTs are digital records of ownership on the blockchain, specifically the Ethereum blockchain. Artists can "generate" their work as NFTs and sell digital property rights to collectors.
Statement of Facts: The value of most NFTs is closely tied to the global crypto market, which has taken off in full this year.
- For example, an Ether coin is now worth around $1,300, compared to its peak price of $5,000 in November 2021.
- The number of daily transactions on OpenSea, the popular NFT platform, has fallen to 60,000 from a peak of 225,000 last April.
Between the lines: The NFT market, according to experts, has been flooded with a variety of quality content, which has driven prices down. There were also more people creating NFTs than buying them.
Yes, but while the hype is fading, there is an active community of people buying and selling all kinds of NFTs, says Lynette Blanch, co-founder of Desire Paiz, a digital community for curious NFT photographers.
- "There's still a lot of activity with smaller artists and communities, which seems to be at least proportional to the amount of sales and creativity that was at the beginning," Blanch told Axios.
- "I think in the early days when people were at home and there wasn't much to do, there weren't a lot of ads on Twitter, which was very important with isolation and Covid.
For Noah Kalina, a photographer based in the Catskills, New York, the relatively close proximity to the NFT world went from something that could pay the bills to another source of income.
- "In many ways, the NFT market has become a part of life like everything else," Kalina told Axios.
Business and art photographer Pete Halvorson has used the bear market to set what many expect to be a potential rally in the NFT world.
- "I've used this opportunity to become more disciplined with my images, and now I'm working on how to present some of the aspects [of generative art] used to display the images in a different way. To enable some artificial intelligence in my images," he says, of the increasingly popular AI-based art. Referring to innovative tools.
The big picture : Everyone in the NFT world who spoke to Axios about this story agreed that despite the financial crisis, the community is better off with those who were there just to make a quick buck.
- "Because pain loves company and people love to say, 'Hey, I'm desperate, let's talk about it,'" says Halvorsen.
Also, photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Scott Strazante told Axios that artists can still find financial success selling NFTs, as long as they're already big names or invited to sell their work alongside other creators at high-profile collections.
Be smart: Many con artists criticize NFTs for using the power of cryptocurrencies.
- However, Ethereum has recently undergone a "meltdown", a structural reset behind the scenes that has significantly reduced its energy consumption, a change that could attract many creators if there is another bull market.
Future Plans : Artists in the NFT space hope that the glory days will return. But many are realistic about the possibility while still celebrating a living community.
- "In the back of my mind, I'm always saying, 'OK, I'm going to give them back and make some money,' and 'This could be something, I can finally retire,'" Strazzante says of his NFT collection. "Those dreams are definitely over."
- "But the NFT space is generally very large," he added. "Twitter Spaces still has a community of people discussing photography and I see a lot of photographers I didn't even know existed."