Author: Nicole Kim
NFTs and Art: 2021–22
When a $60 million NFT-based digital work by artist Beeple took headlines by storm in 2021 — the world gasped in awe. Some skeptics deemed NFTs a “publicity stunt,” collectors of the art world speculated it a short-term gold rush, while some emergent artists began to embrace it as a new market opportunity.
Fast forward to 2022: NFTs have become a $40 billion industry in rife with art, culture and hype. Crypto-centric NFT collectors descended upon the Miami edition of Art Basel celebrating it as an IRL gathering, while blue chip galleries like Pace cautiously followed suit by selling NFTs with a portion of its proceeds going to an environmental cause.
There will certainly a learning curve for the art world as it slowly adopts to this new model, but with NFTs being used to log ownership of any digitally unique asset — from virtual land to gaming items — and the metaverse going mainstream, the future of NFTs is promising, and it’s here to stay.
It’s an NFT, not a JPEG
Just as art could be painted on a canvas, sculpted in bronze, drawn on paper, or even rendered digitally, NFTs have become a new medium for creative expression — one with a verifiable ownership on the blockchain with digital provenance that can be traced. NFTs have shown that non-material works of art are just as valid and valuable as material forms of art; and the ability to provide creators with perpetual royalties via smart contracts that allow collectors as well as tastemakers to build a business and community out of those digital assets have been game-changing.
Here is what we’ve been speculating: those who choose to participate in the new economy will honor it and take what they can. Artists with galleries can forgo the middleman in the sales process; underrepresented creators will now have a platform to sell and create; collectors excited about the art itself will buy what is instinctively appealing; crypto-hopefuls will jump on whatever they can monetize.
But with an oversaturation of Bored Apes, Art Blocks, Cryptopunks and their derivative projects setting the precedent, we feel the need to step in and fill in those gaps.
In 2022, it is predicted that nearly all consumer brands with digital assets to offer will jump in on the NFT sphere. With the rest of the world slowly catching up to speed in this elusive space of NFTs, we are paving way for artists, creators and brands to turn their assets and IPs into tangible and scalable roadmaps, grounded in a deep understanding of their identity. Not all NFTs are created equal!
Cyphrly Studio. Who are we?
Tech-y but Artsy. We are the new Pixar of the NFT era, celebrating creativity at the forefront of technology. With layers of programmatic tech embedded in everything we do, we uncover the artistic value of each project with cutting-edge technology. Art that feeds on real-time data, like a digital landscape NFT that would snow when it snows outside, will become reality.
Blockchain runs in our blood. Blockchain — the technology underpinning an NFT — is foundational to who we are. Cyphrly stems from Lambda256, the blockchain unit of the cryptocurrency behemoth Upbit, one of the world’s largest exchanges by transaction volume. From deploying smart contracts, storing metadata, minting and transferring NFTs, a full-fledged NFT service forms our backbone.
Built with purpose. We don’t animate things just for the sake of animating. Some forms of art is better off static, while motion and music adds more value to others.
Certified green. Creativity should not come at the cost of our environment. With NFTs created and distributed on the Luniverse blockchain using just 1/1,000,000 of energy (*yes, with six zeros!) compared to that of Ethereum-based NFTs, sustainability is unrivaled.
