The art market and NFT tokens on the ethereum blockchain
It all started in late 2017 with the dizzying rise in popularity of the CryptoKitties project.
CryptoKitties is a game on the ethereum blockchain that allows participants to buy, sell and breed cats or special NFT tokens on the ethereum blockchain that represent the characters of cats. Each token represents a unique cat that was produced by a smart contract on the ethereum blockchain.
NFT Tokens
NFT stands for a non-fungible token, a special kind of token that represents something unique. Tokens are not mutually interchangeable and each token is different, as opposed to regular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin that are fungible.
These characteristics make NFT tokens perfect for verifying the ownership of unique digital items, like crypto-collectibles and digital art.
NFT tokens come in two standards: the original ERC-721 and the newer ERC-1155. The basic difference is that the newer standard is tailored to work with multiple types of tokens through just one smart contract, whereas with the older standard each token type requires a separate smart contract.
A good portion of NFT tokens today are used to verify ownership of digital art. We have recently witnessed the emergence of a whole range of digital art marketplaces. We will highlight the most significant below.
OpenSea
OpenSea is the most popular digital asset trading platform. A vast majority of digital assets are listed in the OpenSea marketplace. In addition to several major digital art marketplaces such as KnownOrigin, SuperRare and MakersPlace, on OpenSea you will find popular game items, blockchain domain names, avatars, identities, planets, gifs, memes and different types of crypto-collectibles.
There are maps from GodsUnchain, planets from 0xUniverse, the Cryptokitties cats and hundreds of others. The OpenSea platform also lists Internet blockchain domains, those with eth extensions, as well as Unstoppable domains with .zil and .crypto extensions.
Among millions of items listed in over 340 crypto assets categories you will also be able to purchase virtual real estate and various items in the popular Decentraland VR blockchain game.
In the Storefront section, you can list your existing crypto assets or mint a new one in a few easy steps. OpenSea supports both versions of the NFT tokens.
A glance at the recently sold items will give you an idea of the size and type of the items sold on the OpenSea platform.
Known Origin
After two years of existence, Known Origin exceeds a total of 1,000 ETH of the assets sold with 11,000 tokenized crypto artworks.
More than 300 artists are participating in Known Origin. The team announced that the Known Origin will be presenting a gallery inside the Cryptovoxels VR blockchain game soon.
To get more numbers and statistical data about the platform, visit the dashboard section – For news and announcements check their Telegram Group, Twitter and Medium blog.
SuperRare
Another digital art platform on the ethereum blockchain has just turned two years old.
The SuperRare marketplace so far paid more than $ 600,000 to artists from 178 countries in over 14,000 auction bids. The most expensive single item was sold for $10,000.
SuperRare deployed a unique system of author rewards. After the author sells his work, it is not the end of a story for him. SuperRare rewards authors with 10% of all future sales of that work in the secondary market.
Take for example Mark who sells his painting to Steven for $100, and Steven later sells that painting to someone for $1,000. Mark will receive $100 from the $1,000, thus permanently making a revenue from his copyrighted work.
For more information, visit:
MakersPlace
Among the top three digital art selling platforms on the ethereum blockchain is also MakersPlace. Although slightly smaller in sales volume, MakersPlace is home to some very talented and unique artists with their works.
There are currently over 19,000 items listed on the MakersPlace store within the OpenSea marketplace. You can follow the community of active platform users on
Other art projects on the blockchain
AsyncArt
AsyncArt is a new experimental project that brings an innovative approach.
The artworks created on this platform change their appearance depending on external inputs, making it a programmable art. It can be simple, for example, when changes in the structure of an image are directly caused by changes in the balance of your crypto wallet. Changes can also be much more complex – related to several external inputs.
To make it even more interesting, the artworks created on AsyncArt consist of a basic module and variable layers. Each layer changes the appearance of the image, and the layers are tokenized. Now imagine a scenario where each layer will have a separate owner who can change the appearance of the complete artwork through API keys.
It will be very interesting to follow the direction in which projects on the Async Art platform will develop.
Follow Async at:
Rocket and NFT tokens
Rocket brings another new and interesting concept that aims to integrate NFT tokens into the DeFi sector. Rocket is building a system that will enable you to get a loan based on NFT tokens as collateral.
So far, the standard DeFi model used Ether or some other cryptocurrency as collateral. That DeFi model went through a severe shock with the recent decline in the value of Ether. It will surely be fun to observe the behavior of digital images, domains, virtual real estate or gaming collections acting as collateral.
The project is still at an early stage and it is difficult to predict how soon they will come up with a working service.
You can find out more about Rocket on their Twitter profile, a Medium blog explaining the whole idea, on the Discord channel and in the Telegram group.
The Non-Fungible Alliance
The Non-Fungible Alliance is a platform that gathers enthusiasts, developers and all interested in NFT tokens and their applications.
In the members list you will see a lot of new and interesting projects that are bringing new use-cases for NFT tokens. The list is impressive and is increasing every day.