These Crypto Bros Want to Be the Guggenheims of NFT Art
Perhaps you’ve heard of nonfungible tokens? A handful of collectors already have millions of dollars’ worth.
Eric Young has spent more than $1 million on NFTs, selling only three he considers “notable.”
Photographer: Peter Prato for Bloomberg Businessweek
A few months before nonfungible tokens exploded into the public consciousness, the field was already pretty big, with some 75,000 buyers in 2020, according to a report by market researcher NonFungible and L’Atelier BNP Paribas. But it was also still sleepy.
The term “NFT” is often used as a shorthand for a certain kind of blockchain-linked artwork, but it really refers to the digital certificate of authenticity to which these artworks are attached. The first ones were conceived as early as 2012, as digital coins that represented coupons, subscriptions, or company shares. An NFT can be created for anything, whether a century-old painting or a tweet, attesting to the blockchain’s guarantee that it’s the original, no matter how many free JPEG replicas you can dig up on Google Images. Half of the NFT sales made in 2020, according to the NonFungible report, were related to video games; 8% were connected to metaverses, virtual “worlds” where participants can buy land and virtual goods. Artworks made up only 5% of NFTs’ total market distribution, and most sold for under $100.