The material provided for this exploratory writing introduces the concept of NTF’s, or non-fungible tokens, beginning with some of the first ever NFT’s to exist called Cryptopunks. Upon watching the zoom recording I had never heard about these NFT’s. I have heard of cryptocurrency in recent years and have been curious to understand further what that really means. The concept seems way out of my reach, to be honest, as I have barely begun to understand the stock market, which I believe has some similarities to cryptocurrency. This being said, Chris did a very good job of going over NFT’s and touching upon the concepts of cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Some of the examples that Chris provides in his introduction to NFT’s were fascinating to me. First of all, Beeple’s accomplishments of selling a $70 million piece of digital art is something I can hardly comprehend. To receive that much money simply for using photo editing software and posting it to the internet is beyond anything I could have imagined prior to learned about NFT’s. Another example he gave that I particularly enjoyed was created by an anonymous artist who goes by Pak, known as The Fungible Collection. A part of this piece involves a puzzle of some sort, involving users in an interactive manner. I really enjoyed this as it goes beyond the concept of simply purchasing internet art and not necessarily getting anything out of it besides ownership – a concept that seems slightly silly to me, but apparently is taking off today. Anyways, what Pak was able to do with his collection was auction off pieces by having potential buyers solve a puzzle, share his work on social media, search for old work of his, and estimate the total value of his auction. As seen in previous examples of NFT sales, it is highly likely that his work, being actioned off at Sotheby’s, will have extreme value for whoever is able to gain ownership. Therefore, by giving out tasks for these people he is able to create a level of excitement and a rush around potentially ‘winning’ ownership of his work. In addition, to learn that places such as Sotheby’s and Christies are auctioning off these NFT’s at such high price’s, even compared to other pieces of art that are so well established.
Upon reading the article discussing cryptopunks, I learned a lot about what makes these randomly generated characters so valuable. It is very interested to see the parts of these characters that make them more unique and increase the total amount of sales that have occurred in the past 12 months. To think about how these began, as an idea for something like a smartphone app, and the transition that occurred into the market of digital art that has today is unlike anything else. To evolve so quickly and turn into something worth so much value is unlike any market to exist in the past, at least from what I know. They have been able to use the features of these cryptopunks, such as accessories, hair types, and even the species – alien, zombie, and apes – all contribute to the value of the cryptopunks.