Deep Dive: How is cryptoart different from other NFTs?

Meanwhile on the collector side, getting into cryptoart is a bargain compared to the traditional art world. You can build a world-class collection for a fraction of the cost, without having to store or maintain the artworks in a physical location. And if you want to sell your collection, you don’t need the help of a gallery or an auction house. Often, galleries who represent living artists take active measures against collectors selling their art on the secondary market, but there’s total freedom in the cryptoart world. Plus, with an artist royalty on all secondary sales (as well as collector royalties on SuperRare), artists benefit every time their works are sold.

“I have this hunch that the most significant art movement in all of the 21st century is going to be cryptoart,” theorized artist Carlos Marcial. “There’s nothing else. Like in the 20th century you had plenty, like Surrealism, and that’s why at the end of the 20th century when we were making the transition to the 21st century, you had a lot of philosophers and historians talk about ‘the end of history.’ Like this idea that everything was already said and done. There was nothing new under the sun. Right? And then crypto came, and then cryptoart came, and then NFTs came, and have kind of proven them wrong.”

Even though there’s so much work to be done, one can already make the argument that cryptoart is the most significant art movement this century has seen. And while these are still early days, we just need a little time for it to seep into everyday life. Perhaps like the awkward years of the “world wide web” and “cellular phones,” we had to go through this gawky “NFT” phase, pimples and all, for the movement to fully mature. 

“Believe me, it’s just gonna happen organically,” added Marcial. “I have little kids — they’ve been growing up in a house where we’re constantly talking about hardware wallets, ETH, Bitcoin, digital scarcity. Like, we didn’t have parents who were talking about these things…it will just happen naturally.”

One block at a time.