Image by Jonas Jota from Pixabay
A few days ago, Vitalik Buterin was asked what he found most surprising about the Etherium blockchain, and he gave NFT's as the answer.
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1433235034756972544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1433235034756972544%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdecrypt.co%2F80057%2Fethereums-most-surprising-use-case-vitalik-buterin-says-nfts
- VitalikButerin
This has also been a thrilling prospect for me since I consider myself an artist and a photographer as well, but haven't taken time to nurture the crafts into professional businesses.
However, one of the challenges of using the blockchain to sell creative stuff is transaction fees. Just as I had warmed up to the Etherium whay of things, its price shot up astronomically, along with the fees required for moving Eth around and minting NFTs.
Fortunately, there are all manner of options out there right now but that does not guarantee sales. Curiously enough, it's the ones who are better informed and know how to game the system that are benefitting the most.
Take the famous Crypto Punks for instance. Released in 2017, what were you up to then? Why didn't you think of snatching one at the time? Those are some of the questions I ask myself. It is the more informed who likely grabbed some for fun, and the smart speculators who benefitted the most from this windfall.
Another bottleneck is the tedius process of account verification and the presence of lots of scammers in this space. It's not uncommon to find accounts with stolen art being sold as NFTs without recognition of the original creator that still manage to make sales.
If one is not famous, the uphill task of scuring a sale becomes steeper. One of the strategies people are using is to buy NFTs from themselves and sell at a 'discount'. It has worked for some, you can't make this stuff up.
I'm planning to up the ante of listing some of my work, which I have listed elsewhere on centrallised networks without much success in terms of sales or benefits. I have heard horror stories of people who have spotted their work in one place or another but did not find records of sales on the platforms on which the work was listed.
Hopefully, blockhain technology will help keep better track of these items as it creates a sense of trust between creators and the platform on which they choose to display their works.