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Cryptocurrencies have changed the way many artists and investors have approached their financial decisions. Several celebrities have touted their involvement in cryptos like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, with the hopes of bringing the niche market into the mainstream.
Now, artists have started to forge their way into the cryptocurrency market through the recent popularity of NFTs.
NFT stands for Non-fungible token, meaning unlike Bitcoins one-for-one value, there is a unique value set for each individually listed item. Like other cryptocurrencies, NFTs are an entry on blockchain which makes them compatible with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin.
Rising in popularity in 2017 after the release of CryptoKitties, a popular NFT created by CryptoPunks, several artists, celebrities, and musicians have migrated to the variety of NFT platforms and have started minting their own NFTs. They have created artworks, tokens, albums, and other digitally-driven content.
Several artists have already made millions off their unique art by minting and selling them on NFT platforms like OpenSea, Foundation, Rarible, and NiftyGateway.
Here are some of the most successful artists and collectors who have already raked in profits by creating NFTs of their own.
Danny - SeedPhrase, $1.5 million
While not directly the artist himself, SeedPhrase is an early NFT collector who has gained attention through selling digital land from the blockchain-based game AxieInfinity. The nine rare plots of land from the games metaverse were sold in February 2021 for 888.25 ETH, approximately $1.5 million.
The digital land property was purchased by an anonymous bidder named Flying Falcon who stated on Twitter, “Genesis land plots are the rarest and best-positioned plots in AxieInfinity, they were a natural fit for my thesis”.
The purchase set the record for the largest NFT sale ever at the time.
3LAU, $11.6 million
Musician and EDM star 3LAU is known for having released one of the world’s first ever Crypto-albums. Within 24 hours of the albums release, 3LAU generated over $11.6 million in online sales. One of his singles from the album “Ultraviolet” earned $3.6 million alone.
3LAU’s monumental decision to sell the tokenized album has also inspired several other musicians and artists to consider NFT’s as a way of releasing music.
Shortly after 3LAU's success, artist RAC announced his decision to create an NFT creative agency. A week later, Kings of Leon announced their intent to release their new album as an NFT as well.
Pranksy, $4.7 million
With a cheeky moniker alluding to the anonymous fellow millionaire street artist Banksy, this profiteer has accrued over $4 million by reselling digital artwork through several NFT platforms.
Pranksy reported to Reuters that he had initially invested $600 into an early NFT project back in 2017. Due to consistent reselling and an accumulation of other works, he has now pushed his portfolio into the seven figure range.
A favorite of the platform Top Shot, Pranksy claims to have spent roughly a million on NFTs on the platform and has emerged with over $4.7 million by reselling those investments.
Beeple, $6.6 million
The digital artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold a ten second animated video through the Nifty Gateway platform to investor Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile in October of 2020. Originally, the piece sold for $67,000. But cut to February of 2021, Rodriguez-Fraile went on to resell the same piece through another auction on the Nifty Gateway platform.
Because of the royalties set in place for the content creators through several of the NFT platforms, Beeple was not only able to profit off the reselling, but will maintain his same percentage regardless of how many times his piece is resold.
This unique concept of ownership allows artists individual sovereignty over their creations. This juxtaposes the traditional standard of auctions where only the reseller and the auction house profit off the reselling.
Logan Paul, $3.5 million
YouTube star turned boxer Logan Paul has also joined in on the NFT excitement by releasing a series of 3,000 NFTs sold at 1 ETH per NFT.
After teaming up with Bondly to handle the NFT sale, the unique tokens exploded. In one day, he earned over $3.54 million from the sale. He set an even bolder record with his launch when in the first thirty minutes, he generated a revenue of over $1 million in sales.
Grimes, $5.8 million
Musician and EDM sensation Grimes released a series of 10 tokenized artworks as part of her WarNymph Collection Vol. 1 series during her first NFT drop in February 2021. Within 20 minutes of releasing her content on Nifty Gateway, she racked up over $5.8 million.
Following the success of her first release, Grimes created more hype by announcing that she intended to do further drops as part of the development behind her Oth3rkin universe.
Grimes is the wife of Tesla CEO and fellow cryptocurrency investor Elon Musk who has been a staunch advocate of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Dogecoin, even agreeing to purchase some for their son X Æ A-XII.
Artists and curators aren’t the only ones profiting off of the NFT markets. Alex Atallah, the founder of the NFT selling platform OpenSea, has also reported a net increase for the company from an initial value of $1.5 million in January of 2020, to beyond $86.3 million during February of 2021.
Other investors and advocates of cryptocurrency have also taken interest in NFTs' rise in popularity. Mark Cuban, known for his investment decisions and billionaire lifestyle, released his own series of NFTs on the Rarible marketplace. The NFT was titled “The RollUp 2021” and featured a GIF of him showing off his dance moves.
Several high-profile auction-based artists are also finding themselves on the platform via third party distribution.
In March of 2021, an original Banksy piece was burned before being turned into an NFT, eliminating the physical copy of the work. The destruction of the piece paralleled the now iconic piece Love is in the Bin.
After the painting was set ablaze, it was minted into an NFT and now only exists for digital distribution within the metaverse. While Banksy was not involved with the event himself, his representation from Pest Control did authenticate the piece and the event.
Sources: Decrypt, MSN, CNBC, Forbes, CrowdFundInsider