I’ve always had a passion for art. I loved drawing growing up, and seriously considered switching my college major to fine art.
Alas it wasn’t to be, but I still love to appreciate art in all its forms. I recently came across an article describing how some artists are merging their digital and physical artwork with Ethereum blockchain.
Being a newbie to crypto with a feverish curiosity I was hooked and had to learn more. So here’s what I found, enjoy.
The Counterfeit Problem
One of the biggest problems for artists and art collectors nowadays are forged prints and artwork falsely attributed to famous artists.
Just last year The NY Times published an article about the surge in fake prints (link below). The problem is, it can be very difficult (sometimes) to discern an authentic piece of art from a forgery. One art dealer was quoted as saying:
It’s the color of the paper, the quality of the printing, the condition of the print, all of which you compare with the original ... And then you need years and years of experience.
The art is often sold for big money ($5,000 - $100,000) with false verifications, including phony signatures and fake certificates of authenticity.
The problem has been exasperated by online art sales. And it’s not just old masters, it hurts modern artists as well. Digital artists in particular face difficulties protecting their online copyright.
So how can blockchain help?
Protecting Digital Artwork with NFTs
As you know Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are indivisible and unique (not interchangeable). NFTs can contain identifying information in their smart contracts.
This means an original digital artwork stored as an NFT can always be identified. For digital artists, this helps protect online copyright and adds value to the art.
Conversely, a physical art piece could be sold with a NFT created solely for the artwork - although additional precautions would be needed to provide verification. One way could be to integrate a cold storage wallet into the artwork with the NFT.
Art As A Wallet
Ascension of Satoshi
Daniel Loveday
Thomas Crown Art (link below)
Instead of “tokenizing” artwork, some artists are “walletizing” it. This means turning the art itself into a public wallet.
The idea is that enamored onlookers could add crypto to the wallet, but only the artist could withdraw funds. This could provide artists with additional revenue streams.
This also can double as a form of authentication by linking it to a certificate of provenance stored on the blockchain.
The Future of Art
Integration of blockchain into the art world is only at its infancy. These are just a couple of examples of this integration at work.
I believe this integration will become more pronounced and will have an overall positive impact on both digital and physical artwork.
Like if you agree!
