Digital art, Blockchain Certification & NFT’s
Digital art NFTs have been growing immensely, platforms such as SuperRare and KnownOrigin have been experiencing vast growth; SuperRare recently announced that artists have earned a staggering $1.3M on the platform, with KnownOrigin having a total volume of around $500k. In total this amounts to about 20.000 artworks that’ve been sold.
Recently, CEO and Co-Founder of Gemini, as well as multiple Morgan Creek Co-Founders and the MoCa (Museum of Crypto art) have showcased an incredible bidding war on an artwork created by Trevor Jones. The artwork eventually sold for a bewildering $55,555.
Signature Chain has decided to participate in the digital art market by developing SIGN Art; a digital art platform built on the Waves Protocol. To build the most optimal platform aside of solving the current gas fee problem we decided to interview artists in the space.
Ethereum built platforms are currently experiencing high gas fees, which in some cases makes minting art not worth it. Gas fees have experienced spikes of up to $80+ which is just completely unusable. The Waves Protocol uses a fixed fee which currently sits at >$0.005, combining this with the efficiency of transactions on Waves it proves to be a very scalable solution for a digital market.
We asked several artists the same question:
What do you think of the fees on current platforms? And what changes do you expect to see in the future? Different blockchains, or improvements to scalability for example.
-Mr Monk Art
“The fees seem good to me if they are helping to promote you as an artist, or if they help you earn royalties every time your work is sold on the secondary market. They’re also working for you and need to be paid. What is now discouraging many artists is transaction prices. the high cost of gas can become somewhat unsustainable. Sometimes you pay more GAS than the cost of the NFT. For me, the art + game combo is what will open the doors and lead to widespread adoption of the mainstream, but with this gas prices sounds impossible.”
-Baron Lanteigne
“The gas fees are high at the moment and this can be restrictive in some cases. What about a conceptual piece that would require thousands of NFT? For such a project, the current gas prices can be a constraint.”
From public tweets, to direct interviews it is clear that there is need for a solution to this problem. Being a project built on the Waves Protocol, this problem is automatically solved for SIGN Art.
SIGN Art is going to be a decentralized art gallery, no one will have to fill out any centralized application to take part in the market. We asked multiple crypto artists what their thoughts are on the matter:
“Do you feel like platforms should be centralized or decentralized in regards to accepting digital artists? (KYC Application required, or anyone is allowed to submit art right away).”
-Shortcut
It’s important to have both centralized and decentralized platforms. Curated platforms are important for collectors, because, they can be relatively sure to buy original art. From an artist’s perspective it’s important to have easy access to marketplaces (without the need to apply) though. We have to take care not make the the same mistakes as the traditional art market, in which an elitist system only allows a few artists to make a living from their art.
-Baron Lanteigne
“The internet is very broad. I believe there is room for both platforms. The creative flow must never be interrupted and for this reason, we definitely need open platforms with the potential to evolve in directions we can’t anticipate. That said, we live in an era of overproduction which can be overwhelming. This is why I think curation is the art practice of the 21st century. Curation goes beyond the “filter” that accepts and rejects some art. Curation is the process of associating a selection of works to better define their underlying concepts and perhaps discover emerging art movements in the process.”
Is there anything you’d like to see changed or added to the current NFT markets?
-Mr Monk Art
I think it takes a quick leap of maturity, both for artists and collectors. A little more tolerance and acceptance of what anyone wants to publish and to avoid any censorship from the platforms to support the creators. And as viewers and consumers, we will also have to learn to be tolerant and simply let pass or block those who generate trash or degrading or unpleasant content before our eyes. A bit like we do with Twitter or tv, thinking as they were total open. Censorship must be private and only by the end consumer.
The general consensus of digital artists seems to be that there is a need for both centralized and decentralized platforms. SIGN Art will be an open platform, any artist will be welcomed to submit art to the platform.
SIGN Art also has other blockchain related benefits, like Waves Signer. Waves Signer allows users to use SIGN Art without having to download an extension like most competitors using MetaMask on Ethereum. Thanks to there being no extension, the gates for mobile support have opened, and SIGN Art will have full mobile support.
The fixed fee on Waves will make sure that there is no sudden spike in fees, unlike gas fees which fluctuate a lot. Some artists choose to only mint in the morning since there are lower gas fees at such times, this won’t be the situation on SIGN Art.
Alongside advantages like this, we will also be implementing data certificates from our main app (sign-web.app). Hash ID’s of digital artworks will be timestamped on the blockchain to verify authenticity of an artwork.
SIGN Art will be developed in three phases: Phase 1 will be an art gallery with certification features, artists will have the ability to simply certify their art in their own gallery with optionally listing it on the market in the future. Phase 2 will be the implementation of the NFT market and Phase 3 will be the remainder of SIGN Art’s development, all user feedback implementations and other necessities such as a secondary market.
We’ve received great interest in SIGN Art already with Joey Gates preparing numerous artworks for the release of SIGN Art and we’re very excited for the future.
Big thanks to:
Baron Lanteigne, find his latest project bridging cryptoart with IRL contemporary art here: www.tangibledata.art
Shortcut — find all of Shortcut’s art here:
www.linktr.ee/unityofmulti
Mr Monk Art — follow all of Mr Monk’s art here: www.twitter.com/mrmonkart
Joey Gates — follow Joey Gates on instagram: www.instagram.com/joeygatesart
https://www.signature-chain.com
sign-art.app
sign-web.app
https://twitter.com/SignatureChain
https://twitter.com/signArtApp
https://discord.gg/wNkHtcN
https://t.me/SICA_official
https://t.me/SIGNArtApp
https://coindataflow.com/en/currency/signaturechain
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/signature-chain/
https://info.binance.com/en/currencies/signaturechain
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026949.0
https://www.coingecko.com/nl/coins/signaturechain
