Crypto Artists and Investors Trusts NFTs to Transform the Art Industry

Nifty Gateway, a leading marketplace for nonfungible tokens with the backing of the Winklevoss brothers, recorded its largest-valued auction to-date on July 23 when the digital artwork and NFT “Picasso’s Bull” sold for $55,555.55.

The milestone comes as benefits of fractionalized ownership, decentralized provenance verification and the global liquidity pool enabled by blockchain technology are enticing both art creators and investors to explore NFTs.

A surreal couple of days. #NFT art records broken by Picasso’s #Bitcoin Bull. Huge excitement & now followed on Twitter by people like @JWilliamsFstmed @tylerwinklevoss @APompliano 🤯

I do enjoy a challenge but I’m feeling the pressure for my follow up artworks. @niftygateway pic.twitter.com/WFuCBfIS6r

— Trevor Jones 🎨 (@trevorjonesart) July 25, 2020

Cointelegraph spoke to Trevor Jones, the creator of the record-priced NFT, and the artwork’s buyer, Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile of Museum of Crypto Art, to find out why they believe cryptographic tokens are the future of art.

Sam Haig (SH): How long have you been active in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space?

Trevor Jones (TJ): I don’t have a technical background per se but after a successful solo exhibition at the end of 2016, I had some money to invest, which led me to Bitcoin. I spent the latter half of 2017 researching and investing in cryptocurrency and then decided to work toward a crypto-themed painting exhibition for 2018, which was called “Crypto Disruption.”

Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile (PRF): We have been investors in the space for about four years now, having been early to Ethereum and major participants in the 2017 ICO season and beyond […] Outside of investments related to NFTs, we have participated in early investments in Algorand, Hashgraph, Klaytn or Avalanche, to name just a few.

SH: When did you first encounter NFTs?

TJ: I was invited to show some of my work at CoinFestUK in Manchester in April 2019. It was my first crypto conference, so there was a lot for me to take in. I ended up chatting with David Moore, the CEO of the NFT art marketplace KnownOrigin. He was trying to explain the concept behind NFTs to me.

All I remember thinking at the time was that this wasn’t going to work, and especially with me being an artist creating physical work in paintings, there was no point in me exploring it. I was so wrong!

PRF: Like a fair amount of people, CryptoKitties was our “first encounter.” But we did not really begin to see the power of NFTs until we connected the dots on blockchain-based virtual land (Somnium Space, in particular) and crypto art. We used this as the building block to understand how important NFTs would become in representing both digital identities and brands for individuals and businesses alike.