Amid the difficult crypto winter conditions, sales of non-vulnerable tokens (NFT) have also slowed. NFT artists and auction sites hope the long-awaited Ethereum merger will revive the market. But the data after September 15 is disappointing.
Still, watching the NFT market since the hot end of 2021 is a joy: The creative arts are growing as a way to create NFTs, and artist Tyler Hobbs has made this NFT art form relevant. Generative art uses an algorithm to randomly generate digital artwork. Each artist carefully creates the code behind their work and the beauty is in seeing what visual effects it releases. The emergence of NFTs has encouraged creative artists to place their work on a chain.
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In September, Hobbs raised $17 million by selling passports to creative arts collection QQL before anyone knew what the wrapping looked like. According to the OpenSea NFT market, the set is currently trading at 111 ETH or $135,138 with a low of 15 ETH or $18,262.
QQL wasn't Hobbs' first major success with a derivative NFT. In October 2021, according to OpenSea, Fidenza was released, a collection of creative arts which has a trading volume of 54,253 ETH or $66,050,857 and is currently valued at 95 ETH or $115,659.
At the time, NFTs were the hottest thing in cryptocurrency and the arts market in general. What makes Hobbs' work interesting is that while the NFT market will slow from early 2022, buyers are flocking to the business. In September, a portfolio bought nearly $900,000 worth of eight bonds from Hobbs' work.
“Projects like Fidenza and QQL are new ventures that were not possible before blockchain and NFTs,” Hobbs told CoinDesk. "NFTs are great for digital media, but there's a real synchronicity to the artwork that's been created, which really helps them grow together."
Hobbs Fidenza on the NFT 2021 hype and QQL on the cryptocurrency winter 2022, the performance data from both sets shows how creative artists can outperform market conditions and maintain future momentum.