A Marketplace for NFTs?

On the occasion of our Webinar on Intellectual Property in NFTs, held on July 16, 2021 in partnership with Artrade and Xertify, we present an explanation of the nature of these artistic pieces.


By: Sylvia Barrero, Artist, co-founder of Artrade

This article was published in July 2021, on the occasion of a webinar that has already taken place, and reflects the state of the NFT market at that time. It is kept as a historical reference.

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are revolutionizing the worlds of art and technology. They are digital assets; that is, we used to talk about tangible goods that we can see and touch, but now we are talking about something intangible, that we can see but not touch.

If you know something about the cryptocurrencies that are named in thousands of media outlets these days, you already know the world of the intangible; the concept is now simply applied to collecting, and especially to buying and selling art online.

The first sale of this kind at an auction was for the famous work "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," a collection of digital drawings and animations created over 5,000 consecutive days and arranged as a collage, which sold for US$69 million. The work's author is the American artist known as Beeple, and it was sold by the famous auction house Christie's.

Can traditional art be part of the NFT market?

Yes! And Artrade, the largest gallery in Latin America, is about to achieve it. Sylvia Barrero, co-founder of this platform, in collaboration with Gochain, will work with some of the platform's most prominent artists to create an exclusive collection that aims to display works in digital format in the international market, as well as to support and raise awareness of crypto art among Latin American artists. Artrade – https://artrade.co/ will continue working with partners to run tests that allow it to keep moving into the digital art market.

How exactly do NFTs work?

As an art buyer, it can be hard to trace a work's provenance if you do not have the certificate of authenticity, and NFTs are filling those gaps. For example, an NFT is unique even if the image of the work is shared on thousands of platforms. When you acquire such a piece of crypto art, the ownership is absolutely yours, even though this asset is intangible, as we noted earlier.

Another benefit of acquiring an NFT is that the work is indestructible, since it is stored on a blockchain through a smart contract in the owner's name, which means it cannot be destroyed, deleted, or replicated. An NFT can be resold easily through NFT marketplaces, and the creator generally receives a percentage of the value of each new transaction.

That contract also makes it possible to verify something that is usually common with conventional artworks, the ability to prove that the work is original, since it is possible to trace the creator as well as the first buyer of the digital asset.

What will happen with NFTs in the near future?

The art market has gone through changes over the years, and we know that exploring these new trends brings innovation to the paths of thousands of artists, as in the case of Nataly Ortegón, an Artrade artist who has joined the NFT world on the OpenSea platform and sold her first photograph within hours of minting it on the platform.

https://artrade.co/artista/naopiart/

If you are an artist, do not be afraid to explore the world of crypto art; just as the arrival of e-commerce revolutionized the world of classical art, it is possible that Marketplaces like Artrade will take great strides in incorporating NFTs into our catalog.

Artrade, the largest art marketplace in Latin America, is committed to the development and career advancement of thousands of Latin American artists who currently sell their works online. We are working so that in the near future we can offer the benefits of NFTs as a complement to the certification of works that can already be done today with blockchain at our clients' request.

We recommend attending our free webinar to get more information from an interdisciplinary perspective.

At Consejurídico #WeWantToBeThere

El asistente jurídico digital de Jurídiconline analiza tu situación específica. La revisión inicial es gratuita.