Unlike the pictures that are usually posted on social media, there is a certificate of authenticity behind each NFT - with blockchain, the edition is limited to a single unique copy which means that the work can only have one owner.
Since the works of art can thus be resold, the pictures are seen as assets.
In other words, a good investment according to the growing crowd of enthusiasts.
Explosive trend in 2021
The medium has "given a new generation of artists huge crowds of followers", noted Fotografiska when the art gallery opened an NFT exhibition earlier this year with works by, among others, Swedish Andreas Wannerstedt and best-selling Itzel Yard from Panama.
According to Forbes Magazine, Itzel Yard could not even afford to pay her bills before she, with the help of technology, began selling her art for multimillion-dollar sums.
Then everything from celebrities to traditional auction houses hooked on the trend.
But now the NFT market has not only slowed down but gone from a sale worth $ 12 billion in January this year to $ 1 billion last month.
Shaky world
The digital art world has proven not to be immune from the financial turmoil that pervades the markets - inflation, interest rates, and stock market lability, notes The Guardian.
In particular, according to Ethan McMahon, an economist at the crypto-research firm Chainanalys, the implosion of cryptocurrencies has come into play as NFT trading is conducted with crypto money.
- It goes incredibly much better for traditional art collections than most of the NFT collections, says the company DappRader's chief analyst Pedro Herrera to the newspaper.
"Are people buying digital artwork for half a billion crazy?" Watch the video below for the expert's view of the matter, and to see what some super expensive NFT artworks look like:
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The NFT trend: "Are people who buy digital artwork for half a billion crazy?"
Check out the video.
Photo: SVT / Facsimile