How to find success in Crypto Art, an opinion by Loop..
Introduction
First of all… read through the whole article or skip to the next subtitle and spend your time taking in this information because this is not a walkthrough to 100% sell your art or make money as a collector in this scene.
If you have no idea what Crypto Art is, check out both of these articles! ~
“What is an NFT & How do I make money from selling my art as a NFT?”
“The Crypto Art World ?”
Finding success in this space isn’t as easy as reading a guide and instantly becoming financially free or becoming the next biggest artist, but hopefully by the end of this article you can take in this information and make your own decisions while continuing to learn about Crypto Art & the fundamentals that the most successful people in the current space show consistently.
I don’t want you to follow advice on an article you may have stumbled on randomly while checking out Crypto Art so I’m going to tell you about myself as this whole article is based on my personal thoughts.
I stumbled on Crypto Art at the end of August and I was a graphics designer / artist for a few years before this, I researched the space and got into it with $0 while having 0 knowledge of Crypto. At the start of September (2020), I started selling art and at the end of September, I started buying. It is currently the 23rd of November as I write this article and I have spent over $50,000+ on art ( including flipping ) and sold my art for over 5 digits too, all in the span of a few months.
Here is a short summary of my journey in the space as I’ve started, my main goal has been to introduce people to this space which is why I’ve made articles about these topics.
This article is all about helping people get into the space, so now after my introduction — lets move on to some advice :]!
Selling Art
So there are a lot of factors that I see significant when buying art and selling my art to collectors & I’ll explain some top points now.
Abundance VS Scarcity
Abundance VS Scarcity.. so this is an argued topic talking about the time variation of tokenization on the blockchain.
Scarcity is typically releasing a 1/1 artwork separate from another 1/1 artwork in a long timeframe ( whatever long means to you )- people say this creates value because your artworks can only be owned by one collector & there isn’t a large amount of your artwork that is available so its more limited.
Abundance is having your artworks more available to others or having more artworks in the market that more collectors can buy whenever they want to purchase — whether this be a multiple or 1/1 — others say this is valuable as your artworks are widely available for purchase whenever a collector takes interest in your work.
I spoke to Colborn from M○C△, one of the biggest collections in the Crypto Art scene ranging from the top artists / most valuable pieces with the collection being worth over $1M!
Here is what Colborn had to say about Scarcity & Abundance -
“There’s 4.57 billion people with active internet connections. I think this whole “Scarcity vs. Abundance” debate is a total and unnecessary distraction for artists.
The whole thing is grounded in economics as opposed to art. Some people just have an inherent need to create, just as if they were breathing air. How can you tell them in order to be “successful” that they must impose limits of scarcity?
It also suggests that people are collecting for speculation purposes and not a love or connection to the work. I think the artists that will do the best are the ones that elicit the most attachment to their pieces, not those who game some sort of Scarcity/Abundance formula to drive a financial return for their collectors.”
I completely agree with Colborn & believe there is no formula to success and you should not feel like you have to follow a certain method whether it be scarce artworks or an abundance of artworks.
Attracting Collectors
Attracting collectors is supposedly the way to get guaranteed sales right?
.. but how do YOU attract collectors? Well, while I’ve been in this space for the past months, I’ve noticed artists go from bottom to top ( sales-wise ) ; there has mostly been a similar trend which is the price of your work compared to your social reach.
A lot of new artists won’t have social reach, but the opposite happens too, if you don’t have enough social reach — you can’t expect to sell a $2,500 piece straight away so you are going to have to start selling small until you gain the attention of collectors who may pick up a few of your ‘multiple’ or ‘1/1’ pieces & you can go up from here.
Sometimes you don’t have to do ANYTHING, because collectors will attract other collectors especially due to how transparent these platforms are. As a collector, I sometimes look at the top collectors & see the art they purchase typically being *new* and *fresh* talent. Which causes me to research and typically purchase a piece.. BOOM!
A collector ➡ collectors
Buying Art
Now for making money on the second side of things, the collector.
The one who funds these artists but makes more money on the side?
Well, there is 3 main reasons a collector would buy art —
1. Flipping for more gain (Short-Term)
2. Flipping (Long-Term)
3. Loving the art (!!!)
My personal experience with flipping art has been big success and big failure, its like investing into a coin that you think will moon.. if you have no knowledge of the Crypto Art space.
I think its easy to spot what you are looking for if you plan to flip ( whether it be short term or long term ) and this is based on many things an artist has.
- Other collectors’ interest
- Secondary Market Activity
- Social Growth (?)
So this is specifically for flipping artworks, other collectors’ interest in an artists work you are eyeing up is key as it shows stats for you to analyse how much value the work is going to hold.
Secondary market activity is important to see more stats of how that specific artist’ work resells and how long it takes for that resale. E.G — (If I sold a work for 1 ETH this month & it sells for 5 ETH at the end of this month)
Social Growth is something I still look at to but specifically (crypto-art) followers & platforms. E.G — (SuperRare promoting a new artist who hasn’t got that much social clout)
1st Collector
Being a 1st collector is something I personally named in my head and I hope it gets used in the future as the concept of it is widely shown for some of the biggest collectors in the scene.
What I would call the 1st collector is investing into a singular artist straight from their genesis piece (most of the time) or buying their current ones from sale and all their new ones. Rather then investing in a singular piece varied through a lot of artists, you and the artist are growing together, I typically look at artists who follow certain fundamentals of what I look for in terms of *creating* value and then invest into them.
Take the leap and find the artist that you have hope in and become the 1st collector and it will pay of in the long term.
I spoke to Colborn again and asked how he got into purchasing Crypto Art very early with no big statistics — “It’s hard to explain how different it was 9 months ago when I started curating. I remember reviewing the limited data available but I’m a big fan of learning by doing, so was rather quick to jump right in”
Success & Elegance
Now, some may talk about Crypto Art ruining the elegance of Art due to how money is in control & the ‘rich get richer’, so I asked one of the most infamous people in Crypto Art & the design world — Pak — the creator of Archillect.
“Do you think the secondary market is a big downfall to the elegance of Art & Design?”
- “Not at all! Secondary market is a beautiful thing. It, too, is a part of the work. It can be used to extend the work and its audience. The only downfall I feel here is a certain type of collector that exploits the creator and the secondary market by trying to buy cheap sell expensive in the shortest term. A good solution could be increased royalty percentage based on sale date proximity — a secondary market sale that happens on the same day with the creator sale would give the creator 100% royalty, but, if the same sale happens in a year would give 10% (minimum) royalty.”
I also talked to Pak about how he thinks the Crypto Art space will continue to do in the future and how successful it will be for artists, collectors & who controls the space —
“In the future of Crypto Art, do you believe artists and collectors are equal in importance to keep the space pumping?”
- “I believe the answer to this question depends on the point of view. Who is an artist? A person that creates, or sells? Then again who is a collector? A person that constantly collects more, or a person that keeps what they have? In the end this is a balance with four parts, the creators, the collectors, the audience and the scenes/platforms — and I believe what’s really important is the balance of all.”
Now, after all of this, I hope you learnt something & it helps you. Crypto Art is still a hidden gem with big artists recognizing the capabilities daily and it is only time that you stand out.
Crypto Art is also the coin that will moon with more trust and reliability by investing into a person alongside a verified purchase on the blockchain, it will continue to grow further as bigger investors decide to check out the statistics and room for growth.
Having these opinions from some of the most well-known people in the industry — Pak & Colborn — hopefully helped you to trust more in this article.
Crypto Art changing lives.
for the good.
I hope you read this article to the bottom and it inspired you how big this space is, Crypto Art will KEEP growing.
I drop my thoughts on my twitter and I build Crypto Art/NFT projects in this space, drop a follow if you have time! — Loopifyyy.
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