When the craze ramped up in early 2021 and celebrities were “pumping” crypto NFTs for artists, mostly on the Ethereum blockchain, a number of creators and speculators made money on the appreciation of certain collections: Bored Apes, Cryptopunks, etc.
That appreciation largely disappeared later in 2021 and a number of crypto NFT participants have been accused of “pump & dump” schemes or other forms of fraud.
That said, please set aside “get rich quick” as a benefit of NFT usage for the foreseeable future.
Instead, there are massive benefits to the art business through the use physical NFTs in the way that all NFTs were originally intended: to accelerate the growth of an art business by better connecting with art collectors and the broader community and solving problems related to authenticity and provenance.
Rarity of NFTs
Remembering the crypto NFT boom and bust, a number of the temporarily valuable holdings were “rare.” Bored Ape Yacht Club advertised ONLY 10,000 apes were available. Remarkably, these 10,000 were created in a few months.
For anyone familiar with the work involved in creating unique tangible art, the scarcity or rarity of digital art was somewhat of a running joke. What artist could create 10,000 “unique” pieces in a couple of months?
The good news for traditional artists is that their pieces are truly unique so rarity is not the challenge.
Instead, the common advice to artists is “be prolific” in order get careers going. The thinking is that having lots of work out in the world creates more touch points that may lead someone new back to the artist.
The reality is that many pieces of original art disappear into a blackhole because the only thing connecting them to the artist is a signature. The good news is with physical art, rarity is real and the physical NFT handles the attribution to the artist.
As Wooden Mantra‘s Lenin Rajaram states: “Though my family has been crafting for centuries and what we craft has potential at the global market we never got the credits for the artifacts we made/make.” That is until they started using Etching their sculptures and transferring the Etching to the new owners upon sale. Now each piece they sell points back to their profile in perpetuity.
Ownership and Transferability
So attribution to the artist is a major benefit of using NFTs. The link back to the artist is permanent.
Another major benefit of physical NFTS, which are bi-directional, is that art collectors can receive the NFT at the time of purchase. When you buy a home, a car, or stock in a company, there is a highly regulated system of record to reduce fraud and keep multiple people from claiming ownership of the same valuable possession.
That has not been the case with fine art until recently. Physical NFTs such as Etchings track each piece of art in The Encylopedia of Objects back to whoever created the record. The record can be transferred from one user to another without any fee or need to use purchase using Bitcoin, Ethereum, or crypto of any kind.
The new owner gets the title to the art but more than that, they get the story and photos that were added to the Etching by the artist. When the sale is completed in dollars or the currency of the parties’ choosing, the transfer is recorded on the Etching. Both parties are letting the world know the sale was legitimate.
How many fraudulent sales of fine art will be prevented by this technology? Physical NFT adoption will likely prevent billions of dollars of fraud.
So as an artist, start using Etchings like NFTs to delight your art collectors with the story of your work. You’ll also make them feel more comfortable they can prove they own your work in the event of future dispute.
Security and Authenticity
It may be hard for some artists that haven’t yet broken through to being collectible to believe that their work will change hands multiple times in the future, but each piece will.
So the first collector purchases from a living artist and knows the piece is authentic because they physically received it from the artist’s studio. What about the second collector or the art buyer or museum that buys from that collector?
Using Etchings to create a searchable record of the first transaction ensures the buyer from the second transaction can feel comfortable that they are buying an authentic piece of art and that the seller actually has the right to sell it.
When real estate properties change hands, real estate attorneys provide a “title search” service wherein they check the public records to trace back ownership of a property from the current seller all the way back as far as they can. When they feel comfortable that the seller does indeed own the property and no one else can claim ownership, they will tell the buyer to proceed.
Etchings provide that system of record within The Encylopedia of Objects to help both parties make a legal sale and properly record the change of ownership.
This type of technology will prevent massive fraud as in the Florida Basquiat case in 2022.
Accessibility and Easier Control
We’ve spoken at length about the inherent limitations of crypto NFTs but beyond the internal logic, many art collectors don’t want them.
Crypto wallets are constantly getting hacked resulting in substantial financial losses. Anyone who holds crypto at all has to account for its fluctuation each time they buy or sell it as if they were a currency trader, so many people don’t want to waste time and money complicating their tax filings.
So while artists can benefit greatly by passing NFTs to their collectors, they need to do so in a format that art collectors will accept.
That’s where Etchings come into play. As long as the first owner has the email address of the second owner, they can transfer the Etching along with ownership free of charge with the transaction being recorded in The Encyclopedia of Objects.
Open the Etching–>Hit “Transfer”–>Enter the recipient’s email address and the sale price–>Confirm
That’s it. Whereas Wooden Mantra formerly attempting to transfer Ethereum NFTs to clients “was a problem” for them, they solved it by switching to ETChster and “got the Etchings transferred to them without any hassle.”
Digitalization of Physical Art
Physical NFTs fall more broadly into the pattern of digitalization of art. That’s great news for art fans who have better access to the world’s great art than any generation before.
We’ve seen both private and corporate art collections making inventories of their holdings available online and making physical access possible through museum partnerships and online tours.
Physical NFTs are taking that digitalization one step further to enhance attribution for artists and further reduce all the fraud that has been rampant in the art world.
The great news is that anyone can create a physical NFT without getting involved with cryptocurrency or digital wallets.
And even for family art collections, future generations will have access to the Etchings so that they can find out the story of each piece or even find records of artwork that no longer exists due to natural causes such as fires or more recently, the increasing amount of flooding that is occurring globally.
Conclusion
For those who “get it,” the benefits of NFTs for artists over a career are clear. Each piece that makes its way into the world points back to the artist’s profile permanently. So they’re all passively driving visits to the artist, creating new fans and new purchases.
Physical NFTs also represent an opportunity to differentiate from other artists. They are a very new technology. Artists who are willing to write a piece’s story on the Etching can delight art collectors. And that’s a really good thing. The more artists can art collector 1 to talk about buying their art to art collector 2, the faster their art business will grow.
If you haven’t adopted physical NFTs as part of your art business yet, sign up for a free ETChster profile today and you’ll get a free artist website as well. You can Etch and hold up to 100 Etchings at a time and transfer them for free. Each time you transfer to an art collector who doesn’t have an ETChster profile yet, you’re also growing the art ecosystem.
