Mischief Makers

This post is inspired by the wonderful animator Al Boardman, whose work I have written about previously, and a complete virgin to the crypto art experience he tells me.

One of the reasons I have not posted recently is because I have been waiting for approval to try to sell my work on Known Origin, one of the top NFT* sales platforms.

(The circled spot is my Etherium wallet id…the key to getting paid)

The three top platform are Superrare, which is by far the largest, Maker’s Place, which is about half as big as Superrare, and Known Origin, which is about half the size of Maker’s Place.  This is in overall sales volume.

You have to apply and be accepted to these platforms.  Because of the extraordinarily big sales last fall by Beeple** (among other things) there is a mad rush to get into this, as people see that there is money to be made.

So all three of these top platforms are completely overwhelmed with applications.  I was luckily accepted into Known Origin, but have been waiting since Jan 16 to be enabled to actually sell my work.  It appears that this will happen next week.

But there is a catch:  Because of the rise of Etherium, the crypto currency that NFTs are based on (and second to Bitcoin in terms of value) the price to post work, appropriately called gas, is extremely high, and it can cost an artist up to $140 or more to publish, or mint, their work as an NFT.  Just a few months ago it was ~$30….so this is causing problems…..as artists are slowing down and and really carefully considering if they actually want to spend $140 to potentially sell something.

I take as evidence of this as a note that Known Origin sent out to its new artists asking why they are not ‘minting’ their first work yet?  The answer seems obvious.

Update on Cent

Part of my journey into this space is spending time on Cent, the platform that pays you to just chat.  I have been doing that every day, commenting on art that people are posting and generally doing what I would do on Twitter…maybe just a little bit longer writing…but just social media stuff.

My account has grown significantly, as you can see.  This is simply artists appreciating me taking the time to evaluate their work, or me commenting and adding to threads about art and other things.

This to me is proof of the blockchain revolution.

Here is why:  I have been writing this blog for two years.  I do it because I am passionate about the topic.  It is not about money.  Still…money is nice…and other people get money for things like this, so I added a ‘buy me a coffee’ link about a month ago.  Not a single person has bought me a coffee (tear)….

But here is what I believe about that.  If it were as easy to throw me some money…or buy me a coffee….however you want to put it, as it is in Cent….I am sure some people would have done that.  After all, I have almost 2000 readers of this blog, and I keep getting more almost every day.  So I know it has some value.

But in Cent, to do something like that, you do not need to go to another place and put your credit card in and register and all that stuff….In Cent you just click on a little button and it automatically adds money to the author of that post.

Really.  Click click…money from me to you.

It transfers a tiny bit of Etherium from one person’s account to the other person’s account.  Completely frictionless.  It assumes you both have an Etherium wallet…something that is quite simple to do.

This will change things I think.  A lot.

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*Non-Fungible Token.  This is the distinguishing characteristic of crypto art and will use this instead of the bulky and somewhat inaccurate term ‘crypto art’

**Beeple sold his work on Nifty Gateway, not listed as one of the big platforms for complex reasons….but also an important platform.  This space gets complex quick

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