Despite the brief history of art NFTs, they have already had a significant impact on the fine art market.

With many artists feeling undervalued and unable to break through in any meaningful way, NFTs offer a way for artists to engage with their audience, tokenise their own creativity and establish scarcity.

Art is an industry in which artists have seen their profits eaten up by third parties, but the new decentralised Web3 model allows artists to keep almost all of their profits.

It is clear that the Web3 model is far more efficient than the previous framework, so much so that it has been reported that NFTs made up over 16% of the global art market in 2021.

One of the main benefits of selling art as an NFT is the profit from secondary sales. Many NFT marketplaces allow NFT creators to adjust the royalty percentage, meaning that they would earn x amount every time the piece is sold for the rest of time.

This is similar to the way that ownership of music works, with the rights holder being paid royalty fees every time the song is played in a commercial capacity. This provides a huge incentive for artists to move to the Web3 world because it will allow artists to earn passive income from their work.

Another advantage of NFTs in art is the ability to reach a wider audience through metaverse galleries.

Over the past few years, especially due to the cultural shift in live events caused by COVID-19 lockdowns, we have seen a huge rise in virtual reality and metaverse experiences.

Metaverse technology could mean that anybody with an internet connection would be able to experience and admire digital art. RealNifty has its own metaverse art gallery using the Portals platform, and Sotheby’s, one of the world’s most prestigious fine art establishments, has also launched its own virtual gallery. It was launched in 2021 and is a replica of the Sotheby’s auction house in London.

Since art was recognised as a vehicle for monetary gain as well as a way of expressing oneself creatively, counterfeiting and forgery have been a huge issue, with some art historians estimating forged or misattributed art to comprise up to 40% of the industry.

Because blockchain is a distributed ledger, it can be used to provide an immutable and secure database of ownership.

In fact, many companies are already leveraging blockchain technology to generate certificates of authenticity, ownership and provenance. One such company that RealNifty has been making use of is Mintangible, allowing artists to digitally bind IP, royalty and legal terms to NFTs.

By authenticating art on the blockchain, there may be no need for third-party authentication processes which are subject to human error and can cost a lot of money.