NFTs: A Marriage Of Convenience Between Art And Technology
Abbreviated as NFT, the Non-Fungible Token represents digital assets; photos, videos and audios, stored on the blockchain which can be traded or sold between owners and collectors. Over the internet these days, you frequently come across the NFT craze. Lots are talking about it, while others put their digital assets up for sale.
How to create an NFT
Creating an NFT: you need:
– A Piece of Art: you need to create a piece of art that can be turned into a non-fungible token. It may be video game items, memes, creative arts, real estate among others that would be fit into some kind of digital format PNG.
– A Crypto Wallet and Add Some Crypto: The reason you need to have a wallet is to be able to receive funds, while you’ll need to buy some crypto of your own so you can pay any fees associated with putting an NFT up for sale.
– Pick a Platform to Sell On: different platforms are popping up on a daily to serve as platforms to sell NFTs, they charge different fees, let you set different terms, and may even specialize in different types of NFTs. The most popular platform for NFT sales is OpenSea.
Top 5 NFT sales
Dexerto exclusively categorized top 5 NFT sales as;
1. Pak’s ‘The Merge’ — $91.8m – The Merge officially became the most expensive NFT ever sold on December 2, 2021, with almost 30,000 collectors pitching together for a total cost of $91.8m.
2. Everydays: the First 5000 Days — $69.3m – This piece is the most expensive NFT ever sold to one sole owner — and there’s a good reason for it. Beeple’s artwork is so high-tier and highly respected within the community, and this piece is essentially a collage of 5000 pieces of his work.
3. Clock — $52.7m – ‘Clock’ is a piece created by Pak and Julian Assange, and almost acts literally as a clock, counting the days that WikiLeaks founder Assange has been imprisoned.The goal of the NFT was to raise funds for Assange’s legal defense and was ultimately purchased by AssangeDAO — a collection of over 10,000 people pooling their money to purchase the NFT and support Assange.
4. Beeple’s HUMAN ONE — $28.985 – HUMAN ONE sold on November 9, 2021 for a fee of $30m, closely linked to Beeple’s previous piece ‘Everydays’ according to an interview with Christie’s.
5. CryptoPunk #5822 $23.7m – Super-expensive ‘alien’ style CryptoPunks, 5822 shattered all expectations when it sold for over $23m on February 12, 2022.
According to Forbes, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey created an NFT out of his first-ever tweet, which sold for $2.9 million a year ago. In an initial auction, the highest bid was just $280. In December 2020, Jack Dorsey created a non-fungible token (NFT) out of his first-ever Twitter post.
NFT and Nigerian Youths
Just like sport gambling and buying, selling hoarding of cryptocurrencies, Nigerian Youths are not sleeping on the currently trends of digital assets selling NFTs, they are seen up and running trying to ‘get out of the trenches’ are they’d say.
Naija News recently reported that a Nigerian photographer, Adewunmi Rasaq Babatunde has sold three of his photographs for the sum of N740,000.
The photographer said that each picture was sold at 0.15 ETH and when converted to Naira, it amounted to N740k.
Creating portraits using ballpoint pens, 24-year-old Oyindamola Oyekemi Oyewumi was swept into the NFT windfall when she tweeted her drawing of Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson back in March. Hoskinson noticed the tweet and helped her put it up for sale. At the end of the month, it was sold for $6,300.
A Nigeria Artist, Prince Jacon Osinachi Igwe, was invited to show his work at a contemporary art gallery in Switzerland. In 2020, his art was featured in CoinDesk’s “The Most Influential People in Crypto” list. The same year, he quit his job as an academic librarian at the University of Nigeria Nsukka to focus on his art full time. A month ago he sold one of his digital paintings, “Am I pretty?,” for 13.2 ETH (+4.29%) (around $27,600).
A young talent based in Lagos Anthony Azekwoh, made around $40,000 from his NFT art series, The Deathless Collection, in 2021 with the NFT for The Red Man selling for $25,419.
On Saturday, April 2, a brilliant Nigerian Photographer Adisa Olanshile came online and revealed that he minted photographs of an old man popularly known as Baba Onilu as Non-Fungible Token (NFT) on OpenSea and sold them for 0.3 Ethereum (Eth) each. The Corp Member said that 50% of the money he made from the mints goes to the man.
A young Nigerian man identified as @iamrhazkid on Twitter has taken to the social networking service to reveal how crypto is favouring him. He has built himself a house after five months of minting photos and selling them as Non Fungible Tokens, NFT.
He wrote; ”5 months of flipping Nfts got me this, all thanks to God almighty for directing me to this path.
When I first started in the space, I got rugged aggressively that I almost left the web3 space if it weren’t for the people I met and the kindness they showed me.”
A survey conducted by Finder.com in 2021 revealed that Nigeria ranked 6th amongst 20 countries in the world that have adopted Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”). The reason for this is not far-fetched. As a result of the continued devaluation of Naira, Nigerians are constantly on the lookout for new ways to stay above inflation. One of such ways appears to be delving into the acquisition and sale of digital assets – NFTs.
Aside from tons of creative Nigerian artists on the rise of selling digital assets on NFT platforms, top celebrities in the country are not letting go of the rapid growth of the NFT ecosystem in Nigeria. Among them are; Nigerian record producer Michael Collins Ajereh (Don jazzy), reality show star Anita Natacha Akide (Tacha), Nigerian rapper Folarin Falana (Falz) and Nigerian rapper Jude Lemfani Abaga (MI Abaga) have all announced their NFT assets on their respective social media pages.
As assets are being traded with cryptocurrencies which is banned in the country, the CBN is yet to release any circulars particularly on the use of NFTs. It has, however, repeatedly prohibited the use of virtual currencies as a legal tender by banks and other financial institutions in Nigeria.
Despite varied challenges, many believe NFTs are becoming a way of life for artists. Nonetheless the growth of the NFTs amongst Nigerians, it remains a novel concept. A large number of the population are still unaware of its operations. From creation to selling and receiving of sales values of NFTs, there’s no need for physical or other form of meeting as everything is facilitated and conducted on the blockchain. Suffice to say, there’s a marriage of convenience between Art and Technology.
This article was originally published on Nigeria News
