What’s up, Hive? I’ve been wrestling with something lately. The NFT revolution is upon us. I’m serious. Almost everyone in my regular circle of conversation has an NFT release, pack, or fine art strategy right now. It’s a run away train. I’m uniquely positioned to have insights on this as an artist [long before discovering blockchain], and my position as Art Director at @eos.detroit. We’ve pulled off some big NFT projects, most recently a full stack Garbage Pail Kids campaign for Topps on WAX.
WAX is well positioned as a chain built on EOSIO. From the first block, WAX knew they’d be pursuing NFT’s, but specialized to commodities, for the most part. Packs, collectibles, etc. On the other side, we have ETH, hosting various fine art, limited run tokenized art platforms like SuperRare, MakersPlace, Rarible and new to me, Portion.io, which seems to be focused on comic book artists, which I love. The problem is; I’m just going to say it. It’s on ETH! Why?! All I see is artists bitching about gas fees.
Why aren’t all these artists and collectors here on Hive?! We’ve been art and creative-centric since the beginning and as a DPOS project, saving buyers and sellers bank. I’ll tell you why. It’s the same reason everyone’s on Facebook. Everyone is on Facebook because everyone is on Facebook. Creators aren’t drawn to @nftshowroom because we don’t have the collectors. Collectors aren’t drawn to @nftshowroom because we don’t have the artists. It’s a chicken and egg problem, but I do think it’s solveable.
Firstly, artists with the chops need to show up and take risks to make collectible, exclusive, tokenized for @nftshowroom. I’m going to do that. I’m making an investment of my time and energy to make something that you’ll only be able to get on @nftshowroom that celebrates the uniqueness, durability and community we have on Hive. I also think there needs to be an incentive program to lure ETH publishing artists back to Hive. I have some ideas, but I have to develop them over conversations with @lovejoy, @mada, @midlet and a few others.
I don’t believe NFT’s are a trend or a bubble. A lot of investors are looking for alternatives to withdrawing their gains and NFT’s are a perfect store of value. They also don’t react the same as volatile tokenomics. If they have utility for gamification, that’s even more value. This was more or less a freewrite, getting some of my daily thoughts in to a blog so I can start or continue a conversation, and reflect later. More to come as I’ve already started something super cool, but for now, good night!