Srs Bsns: Why The Rise Of NFTs And Crypto Art In 2021 Could Be A Big Deal For Meme Creators

The world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto art has been steadily growing in recent years with things like Rare Pepes or CryptoKitties paving the way. But the past week has seen a notable increase in online discussion and coverage thanks to a piece of Nyan Cat artwork selling for over half a million dollars and Christie’s auction house announcing its first-ever digital art auction from Beeple.

Despite being around for several years now, NFTs are still a mystery to many with lots of confusion being expressed just about anywhere you see them mentioned. In order to learn more about crypto art, what we’ve seen recently that’s caused newfound interest, and how these developments will play a role in NFTs in 2021, we reached out to Lindsay Howard, the head of community at Foundation (an NFT marketplace), to get some expert insight.

Launched earlier this month, Foundation has had a lot of success in a relatively short amount of time. In just two weeks after launching, Foundation surpassed over $1 million in sales and has featured work from artists like Zach Lieberman, Kim Laughton, Sarah Zucker, Shawna X and even Dom Hofmann, the co-founder of Vine.

Most notably as of late, Chris Torres’ remastered Nyan Cat animation sold for 300 Ether (almost $600,000) after a 24-hour auction concluded last Friday. The sale received widespread attention online, as well as from mainstream media outlets.

Since so many are still left scratching their heads as to why NFTs are valuable (or just lost as to what the hell they even are), Howard offered us a succinct ELI5 (explain like I'm 5) to break it down for people new to the crypto art scene.

“NFTs are one-of-a-kind tokens that represent a unique good or asset,” Howard said. “They’ve been called ‘crypto-collectibles’ because, much like trading cards, NFTs can be bought and sold by collectors. With scarcity and demand comes value — and when you add virality into the mix, NFTs representing digital art have the potential to open up dynamic marketplaces where creators can release unique artworks, and collectors can have fun buying and trading them.”

In the past, early examples of such NFTs working on Ethereum’s (ETH) blockchain technology made smaller waves online, such as CryptoPunks, but last year’s auction from renowned digital artist Beeple was perhaps the most important due to the sheer value.

In December, Beeple’s collection “Everydays,” which included 21 single-edition pieces in the form of NFTs, sold for over $3.5 million on the Nifty Gateway marketplace, helping to propel crypto art into the mainstream since so many paid attention to its newly realized potential for the first time.

Even so, there are still a lot of misconceptions about NFTs floating around, even spawning memes like Right-Click, Save As, so Howard explained what people so often get wrong about them during our discussion.

“One of the main misconceptions around NFTs and a question that always comes up is, ‘Why would I buy an NFT if I can just save the image to my computer?’ Now, through the blockchain, there’s actually a way to track provenance and ownership without limiting an artwork’s ability to freely circulate in the digital realm — which is what makes NFTs so powerful,” Howard told us.

So how does one exactly make an NFT? Through crypto art platforms like Foundation, artists can “mint” their own NFTs and then list them for auction on the marketplace. Upon creation, an artist sets a reserve price in ETH, much like an item for auction on eBay, and then waits for a potential bidder to meet that price. Once a bid hits that threshold, a 24-hour auction is triggered and lasts until the end or can be extended as new bids are placed within the last 15 minutes.

The process differs slightly from marketplace to marketplace, but Howard told us that Foundation has seen a lot of success from this model since their launch.

“We’ve found that this model is really exciting not just for creators to find the true value of their work, but also for collectors who get to experience the thrill of participating in a live, dynamic auction,” Howard said. “For example, there were 29 bids placed on the Nyan Cat auction, and the majority of those were placed within the final hour of the auction, so it kept getting extended.”

In our recent interview with Torres for Nyan Cat’s 10-year anniversary, he told us that his own experience with the process was “pretty streamlined” and easy, even though this was his first time doing one. This ease of access is also something that Torres thinks will allow more meme creators and digital artists like himself to get in on the scene this year.

Since almost all of the sale goes directly to the artist, it’s also a way for meme creators to benefit from their original creations, especially since many of them often struggle with knock-offs, copyright or legal issues to attain ownership and also connect with fans of their work. To Torres, he also sees this as a way for classic and iconic memes to have a bit of a renaissance.

“I think that NFTs are a good place for them to start over and to get their word right back out there,” Torres said. “If you're one of those people [who created a meme] from the past or present, definitely start looking into it because people will start to recognize you. That's kind of the charm of NFTs. It gives the recognition to the artists, so I'm hoping to see a resurgence from those memes of the past. We're still in the very early stages of this, but I'm pretty sure we're going to see a lot of this in 2021.”

While things like Rare Pepes serve as some of the earliest examples of digital meme art seeing significant value placed on them, the recent sale of Nyan Cat’s NFT on Foundation was undoubtedly a major milestone for meme culture.

Howard said the sale was significant because it was the “first famous meme to sell as an NFT,” and also agreed with Torres’ sentiment that it points to a new era where digital artists can be directly compensated for the work they create and share online. Foundation has since met with several meme creators drawn to the scale of the Nyan Cat auction, so it appears to already be proving true.

Also since last week, Christie’s announced its first digital art auction set to begin tomorrow and run through March 11th, which should go a long way in shaping public opinion on NFTs and crypto art being taken just as seriously as traditional artforms.

“The auction will broaden our collector base and create opportunities for the contemporary art world to learn about and engage with NFTs,” Howard said. “It will only bring more attention to the artists and work that are already here.”

While articles in the past have claimed previous years as “the year NFTs will finally take off,” it does indeed seem like 2021 will be particularly important to the scene. The recent hype surrounding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin will also likely help to legitimize crypto art since the two are somewhat related. But for now, this year is already off to a great start for the industry with lots of buzz and headlines.

As for how this will affect meme creators and meme culture in general, we’ll just have to follow along and see how everything plays out over the pivotal next few months. There are already some meme formats going up for auction on platforms like Foundation, such as a recreation of Leonardo DiCaprio Laughing up to almost $1,000, so it seems like a safe bet for now.