Minting, Purchasing and Trading NFT Art

An NFT is a unique digital asset that exists on the blockchain.

Digital art is art created using computers or other electronic devices.

NFT art enables content creators to earn royalties from all future sales.

People can mint, buy and sell NFTs at Gate.io and other marketplaces.


The blockchain enables many artists to create digital art and tokenize it in the form of Non-fungible tokens (NFT) which they can easily sell on the market. In this article, we discuss what NFT art is and how to create and sell NFTs. But, in order to understand what NFT art is, we should have ample knowledge of NFTs and digital art.


What are NFTs?

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Non-fungible tokens are one-of-its-kind digital assets existing on the blockchain, which people can verify and distinguish using Metadata and codes. The NFTs enable people to prove ownership of digital assets as well as to confirm their rarity or scarcity. In other words, each NFT is unique with its own registration number the way each vehicle has a single and identifiable number plate.

Digital art
NFT art is a special type of digital art that exists on the blockchain. In this context, digital art refers to anything visual which a person creates using a computer. The artist makes use of visual design and digital technologies to craft aesthetic visible impressions which portray their cultural, individual or national aspirations and values in a similar way as traditional artworks.

What is NFT ART?
NFT art is any form of digital art which has been converted to a non-fungible token (NFT). As such, NFT art comes in various forms which include photographs, videos, music and written work, among others. Primarily, any existing art, whether physical or digital, converted to non-fungible tokens becomes NFT Art. As we have appreciated, NFT art is not a new artistic medium such as painting, printmaking and collaging, but rather the digitalized and tokenized nature of the aesthetic works.

Specifically, when you buy a piece of NFT art, you acquire the certificate of ownership and authenticity of the artwork. The good thing is that an NFT has a single owner at a time, although it is possible to change its ownership. Once that piece of art is sold and changes hands a new record of change of ownership is created on the blockchain. Therefore, people can always track the history of the piece of art from its inception to the present moment.


How does NFT Art work?

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Basically, any individual can convert creative work of any kind into NFT which he/she can sell on different marketplaces existing on the internet. Even when the creative work is not originally his/hers, a person can turn it into a non-fungible token. However, if originally the artwork is not yours, you have to seek permission from its creator in order to avoid copyright infringement. Remember, national or international copyright laws apply even when dealing with digital work.

Further to this, the individual artist or anyone for that matter can become a digital artwork collector, with exclusive rights to his/her collection. The major difference between our traditional artwork and NFT art is that with the latter you can display and manage the piece of art on a virtual marketplace such as OpenSea, Superare, Rarible and Gate.io on a daily basis. With this scenario, it is very simple to determine the value of the artwork constantly. In most cases, the demand and supply of the piece of art on a marketplace such as Gate.io determines its current price or value.

Conversely, a piece of traditional art can exist for a very long period without a value attached to it, except a price tag which may not reflect its true market price.


How does NFT Art benefit the artists?

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In comparison to the traditional art, NFT art provides greater benefit to the artist. Apart from making the artwork available to the entire world, NFT art allows the artist to earn from his/her work every time when there is a change of ownership of the piece.

As we note, this arrangement makes it possible for the creator to earn money for the piece of art for his/her entire life. Thereafter his/her descendants may earn from it for a limited time, as the applicable copyright dictates. The normal royalty is within the range of 8-10% of future sales.


Examples of NFT Art

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In order to enable everyone to understand the nature of NFT art, let’s look at a few examples of such artworks. Larva Labs created 10 000 pixelated portraits of some characters. These unique pixelated portraits, created on the ethereum blockchain, called CryptoPunks were sold for millions of dollars.
Another popular piece of NFT art is the NFT-based picture “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days”, created by the artist Mike Winkelman, best known as Beeple. Interestingly, this picture fetched $69 million in March 2021 at Christie’s Auction.

Probably, the third best known NFT-based artworks are the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). This is a collection of one thousand comic book-style portraits of apes. People can buy these tokenized portraits of apes from various marketplaces such as OpenSea. Once again, these portraits sold for millions of dollars, popularizing the NFT art.





How to create your own NFT-based pieces of art?

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With the current hype of NFT-based art, you may wish to create your own. It is very simple to do so. Let us outline the process.

Select an artwork: You can create your own art work or get permission to use another person’s piece.

Choose a blockchain: Once you have the piece of art to tokenize, you need to select the most suitable blockchain where you will mint the NFT. Currently, the most popular blockchain networks to mint NFTs are Ethereum, Tezos, Polkadot and Cosmos.

Create a digital wallet: In order for you to create and store your NFTs you need a secure crypto wallet such as AlphaWallet and Trust Wallet.

Select a marketplace: The marketplace is the platform where you sell the NFTs. There are many marketplaces which include Opensea, Rarible and Foundation. The factors that influence the choice of the marketplace include the fees, royalty and ease of use.


How to buy NFTs

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So far, we have covered the basics of NFT art but we need to know how to access and own them. As already mentioned, we have many marketplaces, but for now let's focus on Gate.io, so you know how easy you can purchase and own NFTs.

People can purchase popular NFTs at Gate.io through the NFT auction platform, NFT Magic Box. In fact, you cannot just purchase and sell existing NFTs, but you can also mint new ones. The main advantages of using Gate.io are its low handing fee and the high quality of the works. Unlike many other minting platforms that charge high minting fees, Gate.io allows you to mint your NFT for free.

NFT Magic Box is not just an NFT marketplace, it is a special one since it is built on the native GateChain Ecosystem. Therefore, it is user-friendly and cost effective. Furthermore, NFT Magic Box has high interoperability since it supports the NFT Ethereum and Tron’s TRC-721, among others.

In order to purchase some NFTs, visit the Gate.io Marketplace where you select the various non-fungible tokens you find there. There is full information about each NFT including the token address and the price.


Conclusion

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NFT art has brought much relief to artists as they can reach a global market as well as earning royalties for life. Some well-known NFT artworks include CryptoPunks, Beeple’s “The First 5 000 days” and Bored Yacht Club. These NFTs have sold for millions of dollars.

Notably, people can mint, buy and sell NFTs at Gate.io through the NFT Magic Box section.



Author: Mashell C., Gate.io Researcher
This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.