"Dot plot into gold" NFT

When ICPunks went online in September last year, Yang Ming, who worked in an open source community, directly got the "whitelist" rights and interests, and had the opportunity to airdrop this NFT avatar, "without spending a penny".

However, there are not many opportunities for such "free", in addition to the daily pursuit of NFT popularity, Yang Ming will also "follow the trend to buy and buy", a number of calculations, he has spent tens of thousands of dollars in NFT transactions. According to him, most of the time, as long as he thinks it looks good or looks good, he will "chop his hands".

On January 1, 2022, the fashion brand founded by star Jay Chou and the decentralized entertainment platform Ezek jointly launched a Phanta Bear NFT project, which attracted the attention of star chasers and NFT collectors, including Yang Ming, by releasing 10,000 algorithm-generated digital collectibles.

It is reported that each phantom bear in the above project has a "star eye", which will also have other characteristics and can unlock different and unique access levels and privileges for the owner.

Even if he is not an NFT collector, Yang Ming, as a "Zhou Dong fan", when each Phanta Bear is priced at 0.26 ETH (equivalent to 3988 yuan), he wanted to easily "chop his hand", did not want the price to soar to 7.87 ETH (equivalent to 120733 yuan), and then quickly fell back, "similar to the feeling of flipping shoes." ”

Despite the heartbeat, the "roller coaster" price change of this project has deterred Yang Ming.

Rich man game?

As a non-homogeneous token, NFT is a coin circle noun, how does it collide with the artwork to create a spark?

It starts with an auction. Founded in 1766, Christie's, a British auction house, auctioned a purely digital artwork by writer Beeple online on the evening of March 11 last year, "Every Day: 500 Days", which was sold for 69.346 million US dollars (450 million yuan).

This move not only broke the world auction record, but also brought the NFT digital collection into the public eye.

Christie's relevant people told reporters that digital art has sprouted as early as the middle of the last century, but there was still a copy of the mortar at that time, until the integration of NFT encryption authentication technology, so that the artist's creation became "unique", and can be traced, identified, displayed and even transferred to the transaction.

A set of data shows that after the introduction of NFTs in the global auction market, Christie's has generated nearly $150 million in revenue through auctions of the NFT digital collection throughout 2021.

In Christie's NFT-related art auction, star Yu Wenle participated in it last September, auctioning his NFT collection. It is reported that Yu Wenle is a "big player" involved in the cultural and entertainment circle involved in the NFT field, he has a personal collection of 79 NFT works, and his Twitter avatar costs up to 120 ETH, about 2.75 million yuan to buy CryptoPunks (cryptopunk).

Long before Jay Chou brought the Fire Phantom Bear, the Ethereum Independent Digital Yacht Club (Boring Ape Yacht Club, hereinafter collectively referred to as "BAYC"), composed of 10,000 ape heads NFT, was also very popular. NBA star Curry once spent 55ETH to buy such a BAYC ape NFT avatar.

An avatar, so expensive, that the instantaneous NFT digital collection was dubbed the "game of the rich". In this regard, the NFT collector Yu Meng denied it.

"At the beginning it was very cheap." Yu Meng found that based on the traffic effect, more and more fans will follow the stylistic star and like an IP image, which will bring about an increase in the turnover rate, more diamond hands, and finally reach a consensus. It is not difficult to see from some of the above-mentioned NFT projects that the status of the holder has become higher, thus allowing the "floor price" of related NFT artworks to soar.

An avatar can sell for millions of yuan, "like a bright digital token." Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, was interviewed by the Economic Observer Network earlier this year, and when talking about the digital art transaction based on NFTs, he said, "I am also quite confused." ”

In the face of new concepts, Zhou Hongyi is not without research, he understands that in such a highly advanced digital system as the metacosm, new forms such as social relationships, virtual identities, and NFT digital collectibles are included. But as for the artwork, he feels, "There are two things behind the value that cannot be ignored, one is scarcity, and the other is that it has the value of resale." ”

Focusing on the current NFT digital collection, Zhou Hongyi found that many of them are not owned by one person alone, and can even be copied in multiple copies, which makes him doubt the business logic of the NFT digital collection.

Behind the bubble

"It's being hyped up now." Zhang Ruxin, a practitioner in the field of digital art who lives in Singapore, believes that there is no problem with the form of digital art transaction based on NFTs, but there is "some bubbles" at present.

She suggested that when bidding or buying some NFT artworks, ordinary buyers should still have many criteria to consider: whether they really like it, whether the artist has a future, how extensible the artwork is in the later stage, and whether there is a market prospect.

Zhang Ruxin's previous work was mostly to make some advertising poster brochures, or to make short videos to serve various movies, games, etc. Unlike traditional works of art, which can be exhibited in art galleries or auctioned at auction houses, "digital art is an applied art that serves other industries." ”

It wasn't until the advent of the NFT that Zhang Ruxin realized that digital art had changed, "becoming an independent, auctionable, and tradeable work of art." In addition, NFT artworks or avatars, so that people are no longer limited by the region, "not necessarily to go to Christie's, Sotheby's and other auction houses", anyone can be auctioned or traded, and even in addition to the design of art, collectibles, even text, music and other content can be NFT certification, as digital art sales.

For example, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has put his first Tweet on the NFT irreplaceable technical mark, auctioned at a bid of more than $2.9 million; Tesla founder Elon Musk has also announced that he will sell his tweet as an NFT, with a maximum bid of more than $1.1 million...

"NFTs can make a work or artwork a digital asset, bought and sold like a physical asset." Today's Zhang Ruxin, mainly designing NFT avatars customized by customers according to their own image, she will draw with reference to the relevant character characteristics, and then upload the works to the OpenSea platform, on-chain, trading.

Although some individual NFT artworks have been speculated to millions of dollars or even hundreds of millions of dollars, Zhang Ruxin pointed out that only a very small number of works can be speculated at sky-high prices, and most NFT artworks are very cheap, "a price that ordinary people and ordinary people can buy." ”

She has been displaying and trading NFT digital artworks on an international trading platform called "NFT Leader" in OpenSea, "trading and trading, with very low fees." According to her, the platform charges sellers like her a 2.5 percent transaction fee for profit.

Benefiting from the NFT's distributed digital ledger, Zhang Ruxin told reporters that the transaction status, ownership and validity of each work can be tracked. "Someone else bought my work, and I can get a commission on the next trade or every trade." In her view, according to the individual's purchasing ability, to choose the right price of NFT art for trading and collection, "will be an increasingly popular way of art trading." ”

It is not a vacuum, but it can be seen in the changes in the transaction size of OpenSea.

According to the public recollections of OpenSea founders Devon Fenzer and Alex Atra, in the early days of the platform and even after the 2 years after the launch, the active users were only a few thousand people, and the transaction size was only one million US dollars. But after February 2021, there will be a turnaround.

The NFT market has blown a spring breeze, so that a large number of users poured into the OpenSea platform transactions, monthly active jump jumped to 200,000 people, half a year doubled 50 times, the past year's historical sales of more than 10 billion US dollars.

This change in operational data, happening on any Internet platform today, will undoubtedly be called a "miracle". Of course, after the NFT project platform rose to fame overseas, China gradually bid farewell to the "stepping on the air" state.

First, the local NFT China official website was launched in May 2021, and then attracted BAT manufacturers who integrate Internet genes and advanced technology.

Just over a month after the launch of NFT China, Alibaba released four Alipay payment code skin NFTs, followed by Tencent, which launched the phantom nuclear NFT trading platform and related NFT content works in August of that year.

Technology collides

Under the NFT boom, in addition to the surge of Internet giants, many platforms with relevant accumulation in the blockchain field have also emerged. In mid-January 2022, Shutu Blockchain Research Institute launched the Taopai Digital Collection NFT platform.

Less than 10 days after the launch of Taopai, Zhu Qilan, known as "China's cutting-edge NFT encryption artist", sold a limited edition of "A Waman Makes A Plan" on the platform, of course, its price is not "unattainable", "1000 yuan per painting." ”

Zhu became the first NFT artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Song Yang Art Museum in May last year. The reason why she became interested in NFT crypto art goes back to her study in the United States, especially in 2020, when she encountered the epidemic and isolated online classes, and she was exposed to this new form of art creation under the leadership of the professor.

Later, Zhu Qiran copied a popular selfie photo of a "human high-quality male", which was liked by friends after being sent to the circle of friends, "so I helped him mint to be chained, and then collected by him." ”

Such a process allowed Zhu Qilan to discover the value of the work, in addition to aesthetics and information, there is a new dimension of "connection". Digital works that are linked based on NFT technology become a medium of connection at some point, "When I cast it on the chain and then collect it by the collector, a creation that may have been forgotten by brushing it in the past will transform into our common memory and will always exist." ”

In the process of collecting NFT artworks, "the personal shallow understanding, this form is cool." Yang Ming feels that the NFT technology derived from the blockchain integrates its indivisible, irreplaceable and unique characteristics into the art field, so that specific art assets can be confirmed and traced and verified through relevant technologies.

Today, NFT has become a buzzword in the art world. The cross-border of this new technology has given "an iteration of ideas in the field of art" to the field. Talking about the value of NFTs for artistic innovation and the new dimensions that drive the industry into, Zhu Qilan affirmed it, but since the creation of digital artworks, she has increasingly felt that crypto art is only a small part of the application of NFTs.

"The history of the development of art has changed from flat to three-dimensional, and our collection and appreciation of works of art is also affected by factors such as times, regions, culture, scientific and technological development, and social consensus." Zhu Qilan does not doubt that the realization of "NFT" in culture and art is the gospel of all creators, including her, or the inevitable choice of collectors in the new era, "NFTs confirm the right to the work of art, ensuring the originality of the work belonging to the author, and also by the act of chaining, so that the work is full of ritual and eternally recorded in the Internet space." ”

It is not difficult to imagine that "as long as the blockchain ecology exists forever, all works on the chain will also last forever." Zhu Qilan knows that she benefits from the re-upgrading of artistic creation by NFT technology, "NFT technology is not good or bad", she believes that the key point is how creators and consumers in the field of cultural design will use and design new ways to play through technological innovation.

Yu Meng, who works as the assistant to the chairman of a domestic investment company, in addition to his job, "has been in contact with NFTs in all his spare time in the past six months." Not only did he put his passion into it, but after careful research, he found that the field was "not so mysterious and sophisticated." ”

In an interview with the Economic Observer, Yu Meng said that the NFT itself can well package digital content, without the need for any certification body, the packaged digital content is confirmed, coupled with the high liquidity of the NFT itself, which also makes the falsification of digital artworks "almost zero cost".

In addition to the above-mentioned value of confirming rights and circulation, Yu Meng believes that the on-chain of artworks has not changed the essence of its artworks, and what kind of NFT artworks look like and in what form they appear is not the most important, "What is important is the commercial logic behind it." ”

A reality that cannot be ignored is that the vast majority of people in the current market buy NFT art not for art collection or fun appreciation, on the contrary, most of them regard the collection as an investment in digital assets.

"All commercial gameplay is performed by the merchants themselves." Even though the current NFT digital collection field is hot, Yu Meng still "observes" some signs: the whitelist requirements of various NFT projects are becoming more and more demanding, and the prices of some new projects are beginning to be unreasonable... Analogous to financial markets, he believes that the current NFT market is in a bull market, "bull market means higher risk and cost." He suggested that the relevant NFT project parties should "take profits", and for individual speculators, they should avoid taking too many risks.

In the process of interviewing reporters, Zhang Ruxin and Zhu Qiran have mentioned a word - the new era, for digital art designers and creators like them, after the collision between NFT and the field of culture and art, the aesthetic has become more free and open, and the choice has become more abundant and diverse, especially the emergence of NFT art creation and collection, which has touched the artistic innovation into a new era.

It is undeniable that the NFT has brought new elements to the digital world, so that digital art and digital content can be efficiently confirmed, and even cross-platform circulation and transaction, but "not all works of art must be NFT identification", Yu Meng always feels that those antique physical artworks that have undergone the baptism of time offline have details and meanings that cannot be replaced by electronic code.

(At the request of the interviewee, Yang Ming and Yu Meng are pseudonyms in the text)