This market, which emerged in a pandemic, is presented as an interesting option for those who invested in cryptocurrencies and who are now looking for less volatile values.
The history of humanity can be covered in its entirety through art, which has shaped its character and progress era after era. So much so that even today’s technological revolution is reflected in a booming artistic trend. It is about digital art, a natural evolution of the classic, which is all the rage among the millennial generation. In some cases for its aesthetics; in others, for its value as an investment.
But digital art is not something new. It emerged in the 60s and was strengthened in the 80s, with the arrival of the internet. Although at that time it had no monetary value, because it was impossible to prove its authorship: the pieces could be replicated over and over again. This has changed, with the possibilities offered by technology blockchain. In order for it to acquire monetary value, digital art takes the form of a NFT (non-fungible token). They are pieces that are assigned a digital certificate of authenticity that verifies them as unique works, of which their starting value and successive transactions are recorded.
clear parallelism
And this is precisely what the newborn Spanish platform Obilum Art, owned by ioBuilders, is dedicated to. “NFTs are the most logical way to buy, sell, collect and trade digital art,” says its co-founder and co-director, Carmen Ballesta. This graduate in Law and Art History ensures that there is a clear parallelism between the world of physical and digital art. Traditionally, whoever had money invested it in paintings, an asset whose value remains stable and even increases, for example, with the death of the author. Now, whoever has assets, also in the form of cryptocurrency, can decide to invest it in digital art.
Ballesta predicts growth in the sector. In fact, The platform plans to invest 750,000 euros in technology in 2023 and expects to sell works worth five million euros in the next three years. At the moment, the works that they have sold during their two long months of life have oscillated between 3,000 and 4,000 euros. And they have always included a supplement to the physical work.
To sell through this platform, the author passes the filter of art curators. “We are very sure of the artists we include,” says the director. Of each sale, the company keeps less than 50%. “In traditional art, the galleries take half of the sale,” she says. And, furthermore, “millennials like this art much more.” “A digital work attracts a lot of attention. The exhibitions have already been filled with screens,” concludes the co-founder of Obilum Art.
Perfect storm
Investments in digital art skyrocketed between 2020 and 2021, the year in which an author, Mike Winkelmann (better known as Beeple) came to sell his work (in the form of NFT) for 69 million euros, becoming the most expensive piece of digital art in history. This is just one example of the exorbitant prices that digital works of art reached, when a perfect storm formed between auction houses, which sought to diversify products and sales, and cryptocurrency investors, who after the rise of these assets and their well-known volatility, they were eager to find a haven stock that would protect their investments.
The pieces have become a candy for speculators. One was sold for 69 million
At this juncture, artists began to emerge who created works quickly to obtain stratospheric profitability and investors who did not have much knowledge of art and who bought works “of dubious quality, who got carried away,” he says. Paul Waeldercollaborating researcher at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
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With this NFT boom, a market of speculation was generated around digital art that, however, has already stabilized, thanks in part to the progressive fall in the value of cryptocurrencies. Although not for that reason its price has sunk. According to the two experts consulted by ‘assets’, digital art is already just as valued as traditional art. They are complementary, de facto. Proof of this is the sale of the NFT Casa Batlló: Living architecture, by the well-known digital artist Refik Anadol and inspired by the famous and historic Barcelona façade, which was auctioned in May of last year for 1.38 million dollars.
However, the recommendations of the experts go through investing in digital art with knowledge, looking at artists with a consolidated career, and taking into account that investing in art is useless if what you are looking for is immediate liquidity. Yes indeed, Waelder he warns that the field of art “is very complicated and its value is long-term. We must preserve the works as a cultural value, not so monetary.” But Ballesta assures that investing “in digital art is something so pioneering that it is inflation-proof and will bring great joy in the future.”