Crypto art

Crypto art (also stylized as CryptoArt or Cryptoart) is a category of art related to blockchain technology.

Emerging as a niche genre of artistic work following the development of blockchain networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in the mid to late 2010s, crypto art quickly grew in popularity in large part because of the unprecedented ability afforded by the underlying technology for purely digital artworks to be bought, sold, or collected by anyone in a decentralized manner.[1]

Definition

While there isn't one agreed upon definition for the term, two common interpretations currently exist among crypto artists and their collectors. The first, regarding crypto-themed artworks, or those with subject matters focusing on the culture, politics, economics, or philosophy surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.[2] The second, and more popularized definition, includes digital artwork that is published directly onto a blockchain in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT), which makes the ownership, transfer, and sale of an artwork possible in a cryptographically secure and verifiable manner.[1][3]

However, confusion can often arise when attempting to formally define crypto art since gray areas and nuance make it somewhat difficult to do so.[4] For example, blockchain technology has also been used to publicly register and authenticate preexisting physical artworks to differentiate them from forgeries and verify their ownership via physical trackers or labels.[5][6] Whether or not such artworks could be classified as crypto art is unclear.

History

2014

Monegraph launches the first marketplace to register art on the Bitcoin blockchain.[7]

2015

Artist Sara Meyohas launches Bitchcoin in February, "a cryptocurrency for Buying Art and Investing in the Artist."[8]

Ascribe launches in June, using Bitcoin’s blockchain to help artists claim ownership of their work[9]

Verisart launches in July to "use the Blockchain to verify the authenticity of artworks"[10] by building a worldwide authenticated ledger of works.

2016

Rare Pepe's trading cards launch in October on the Bitcoin blockchain using Counterparty (platform).[11][12][13]

2017

CryptoPunks launched in June, paving the way for rare digital art.[14] There are ten thousand unique computer-generated CryptoPunks tied to a token on Ethereum. These non-fungible tokens are the base for the standard ERC721.

The Cryptokitties game to collect, breed and sell virtual cats launched in November. Within a week people had "spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain".[15] It used CryptoPunks non-fungible tokens as a base and went on to propose the ERC-721 token standard that is used for crypto art.

2018

Rare Art Fest, the first festival dedicated to crypto art and rare digital art, is held in NYC in January. Born from a tweet by Joe Looney, the creator of the Rare Pepe wallet, it was a community organized event led by Tommy Nicholas from Rare Art Labs with the help of DADA. It brought together the art and blockchain community for the first time, a standing room only of over 400 people. Speakers included Dan Viau from Kitty Hats, Shaban Shaame from Spell of Genesis, Vladimir Vukicevic from Meural, Kieran Farr from Decentraland, Jess Houlgrave and Jessica Angel. Keynote presentations included Joe Looney from Rare Pepe's, Matt Hall from Cryptopunks and Beatriz Helena Ramos from DADA. Louis Parker held a Rare Pepe auction in which Homer Pepe sold for $39,200, prompting headlines from The New York Times[16] and The Paris Review.[17]

After these events, Elliot Safra and Anne Bracegirdle organized Christies's first Art+Tech Summit in London dedicated to Blockchain.[18]

2020

Crypto artist "Beeple" breaks records on Gemini's Nifty Gateway platform by selling a collection of 20 artworks for a sum of $3.5 million.[19]

References
  1. "How blockchain technology reached Christie's and changed the art world along the way". NBC News. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  2. Canellis, David (2018-08-06). "Welcome to the weirdly wonderful world of crypto-art". Hard Fork | The Next Web. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  3. Yurieff, Kaya (2018-02-14). "Crypto-artwork of a rose sells for record $1 million". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  4. Haigney, Sophie (2018-06-05). "When Crypto Meets Conceptual Art, Things Get Weird (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
  5. "Could Blockchain Put an End to Stolen Art Sales?". Observer. 2018-10-11. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
  6. "Verisart Plans To Use The Blockchain To Verify The Authenticity Of Artworks". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
  7. Constine, Josh. "Monegraph Uses Bitcoin Tech So Internet Artists Can Establish "Original" Copies Of Their Work". TechCrunch.
  8. Stinson, Liz. "BitchCoin: A New Cryptocurrency for Buying Art and Investing in the Artist". Wired.
  9. Abhimanyu, Ghoshal. "Ascribe is using Bitcoin's blockchain to help artists claim ownership of their work". TheNextWeb.
  10. Butcher, Mike. "Verisart Plans To Use The Blockchain To Verify The Authenticity Of Artworks". TechCrunch.
  11. Hathaway, Jay. "The Rare Pepe economy is real, and there's serious money behind it". Daily Dot.
  12. Roeder, Oliver. "People Are Paying Thousands Of Dollars To Own Pictures Of Pepe The Frog". Fivethirtyeight.com.
  13. Signoret, Perrine. "La culture Web joue à la Bourse sur le « marché aux mèmes". Le Monde.
  14. Abbruzzese, Jason. "This ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art". Mashable.
  15. Tepper, Fitz. "People have spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain". TechCrunch.
  16. Reyburn, Scott. "Will Cryptocurrencies Be the Art Market's Next Big Thing". The New York Times.
  17. Penney, Daniel. "How Much for That Pepe? Scenes from the First Rare Digital Art Auction". The Paris Review.
  18. Penney, Daniel. "The Blockchain Art Market Is Here". Christies.
  19. "Net Artist Beeple Just Set a Nifty Gateway Auction Record With Sales of $3.5 Million". Observer. 2020-12-15. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
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