6 BIG Problems for Artists Selling NFT Crypto Art in 2021 (Watch Before Minting!)

please watch or at least listen to this video until the end before you jump into selling non-fungible token crypto art i recently made two instructional videos on how to create and list nft crypto art i made these videos because like many i was excited about the possibilities that non-fungible tokens present for digital artists but since i made those videos i've had the opportunity to hear a lot of feedback from artists and i've looked deeper at some of the biggest problems related to nfts and there are some big ones i will cover the six biggest issues i currently see with nft crypto art in an effort to offer a more balanced understanding of them problem number one environmental concerns you may have heard that nfts are bad for the environment when i first heard that i didn't comprehend how me pressing some buttons on a keyboard could significantly affect the environment but i did some more research and i will try to explain the complex problem as best i can as i understand it nfts are created bought and sold primarily on the ethereum blockchain network blockchain technology uses a huge network of decentralized computers to authenticate and authorize nft transactions the entire network was designed to be decentralized meaning no single entity business or government controls the network instead when a transaction needs to be processed miners operating computers on the network compete to solve super complicated equations i don't pretend to understand exactly how this works but when a miner's computer solves the equation it authenticates the transaction independent of a centralized authority the miner is rewarded for participation with ethereum which is charged to the transaction creator through what is called a gas fee this is intentionally and by design extremely inefficient there are thousands or even more computers around the world working as fast as they can in competition to solve an equation but only one computer actually will the other computers often massive farms of computers strung together burn through electricity for nothing then the computers all look to solve the next equation they run constantly meanwhile tons of electricity is being wasted all over the world and the huge increase in nft activity has compounded the waste a lot and many of these nfts that are being created will never be bought by anyone i'll get to that problem next just a reminder most electricity is still created by burning fossil fuels aka carbon emissions there is a glimmer of hope the current ethereum network as of march 2021 uses what is known as a proof-of-work verification that's the process i just described where computers are constantly racing against each other it is planned for ethereum to transition to a proof of stake method which instead requires users to lock up some of their ethereum temporarily to complete a transaction this is how the nba top shot network functions now i am in no way claiming to fully understand the technical details of this but the point is that someday hopefully soon the ethereum network will be more efficient which means it won't be responsible for as much wasted electricity it also means it will be less expensive to use there seems to be a debate as to how much electricity is being wasted because of nfts although it's certainly a lot it's likely those supercomputers would be burning up electricity for other endeavors if they weren't racing non-stop to mine ethereum cryptocurrencies in general have the same wasteful effect every time someone transfers bitcoin computers are humming away to verify transactions in this ridiculously wasteful system but i'm trying to call it like it is there is a legitimate impact this technology currently has on the environment and nfts are a growing portion of that impact problem number two unrealistic expectations the second problem that's become glaring to me is that a lot of artists and even non-artists are expecting to mint a token pay their gas and have rich buyers lining up to bid on their work most who've tried their hand at selling nfts will attest this is absolutely not the case nfts might open up opportunities for digital art to be bought and sold but that doesn't mean it's going to instantly cause someone to buy your art when they wouldn't have otherwise considered it before the artists who are making money selling nfts are for the most part artists who have already had a huge fan base and this makes sense before nfts rich collectors paid outrageous prices for certain famous artist paintings but that doesn't mean they would have paid it if you or i painted something right the same goes for nfts the other group of artists that are seeing successful sales are those who've gotten exclusive listing deals with big marketplaces like nifty gateway super rare and others i would say this is very similar to a musician who signs a record deal a company yes a company so much for decentralization is willing to push an artist's work at an auction in exchange for a big cut artists who get these deals are again either already well followed or have really lucked out because someone at one of these marketplaces decided to give them a chance in the music industry there are plenty of very talented musicians who can't get record deals while an arguably less talented artist is signed by a big company this nft market system seems very similar to that from my perspective the artist who is not listed on an exclusive market like the musician without a record deal is going to have to work extremely hard to market their own work and convince someone of its value your nft will be among thousands probably millions of other nfts the likelihood of someone with a bunch of money even finding it is incredibly low let alone handing over their ethereum for your piece over somebody else's if you are considering trying to sell nfts i'm not here to convince you otherwise in fact i actually have videos that show you how to do it but please have realistic expectations time and time again people get excited about a quick way to get rich and it almost never works out problem number three gas fees with how the ethereum network is set up gas fees the fees paid to miners to authenticate transactions swing wildly with demand on the network and of course with the price of ethereum sometimes this can make it impossible for an artist to pay the gas fees required to mint a collection it can also deter buyers from buying works but there's good news here some sites like openc and mintable have options to list the nft before it's written to the network so gas fees are only incurred when a piece is actually purchased secondly when ethereum transitions to version 2 and takes on proof-of-stake authentication gas prices will reduce drastically but for now we have to deal with them and it's a big problem problem number four little support on open platforms decentralization sounds good to a lot of people no central bank or institution running everything until you have a problem and need to talk to someone in the customer service department for the most part it looks like customer service is pretty much zero on big open platforms there are forums filled with users complaining about how their transaction froze or the ethereum never showed up in their wallet most of these people seem to be using wallets other than metamask which is recommended by almost every platform and a lot of these do eventually get resolved but after several days we are so used to having a customer service rep a court system or some institution watching out for consumers the entire concept of decentralization kind of goes away from that so beware that if you need help navigating a market or troubleshooting something there's not a lot of help being offered to us little guys problem number five copyright theft i don't honestly know how big of a problem this is but a lot of people are worried about it and it is surely happening at some level in theory the concept of nfts actually protects the uniqueness of an artist's work but what if somebody steals an image of your work tokenizes it and sells it that would be a problem for me if it was my work there are a couple bits of good news though while this could happen the blockchain tracks ownership of an nft all the way back to its creation so if the buyer is doing their homework and thought they were buying your work they might be able to recognize it wasn't created by you also i would hope this is obvious but if you see a beeple piece going for super cheap common sense should tell you to stay away because it cost gas fees to mint these items we can hope that counterfeiting won't be profitable for long there are also ways to report copyright claims on the marketplaces but i honestly have no idea how those reported claims work out this is a problem and may always be one the worst part is this could be a problem for an artist who doesn't have anything to do with the nft market someone could simply be trying to profit off your work by stealing it from your instagram page but is this any worse of a problem because of nfts criminals have been pirating music and printing unauthorized prints well before nfts came along perhaps because there is more financial incentive at the moment it's a bigger problem i don't have all the answers here but it's something everyone should be aware of when you're selling nfts you should already have a social media following or a website make sure you have links so that buyers can go to your platforms from your website and feel assured they are not buying fake versions of your art problem number six open platforms are crowded and unorganized open platforms the uncurated ones are a mess right now so many people are uploading garbage it's drowning out what most would consider quality art and these sites don't have a great way of organizing pieces and making it easy for buyers to find a specific type of art so again it falls on the artist to promote their work and provide links to potential buyers i'm sure this will improve in the future a bonus problem perception i promised you six problems but i'm going to give you a bonus problem and that is being guilty by association some people in the art community both artists and fans don't like the nft concept whether it's because of the environmental impact or a perception of the rich getting richer while regular artists continue to struggle there are plenty of reasons to distrust or even dislike the entire thing what you as an artist could experience is some of your existing followers turning on you i've had no shortage of people contacting me lately and letting me know they don't support my endorsing of the nft craziness each person will have to weigh this out and you probably know your supporters better than anyone else i would just hate to see an established artist try their hand in nfts only to lose their existing supporters and be left with a bunch of non-fungible tokens that nobody wants to buy okay so there you go my goal is not to encourage or discourage anyone from trying to share their work and make a buck off of nfts i'm only trying to provide information on this stuff because there doesn't seem to be a ton of good information out there whatever you do have fun and stay creative oh and please give the video a like if you don't mind thank you

Channel: Brandon's Drawings

Views: 259,274

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Id: msHRy-3WOaA

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021