What’s next for NFT art? Despite Beeple’s record-breaking sale, crypto scams and volatility slowed down the market – but it may bounce back, as Amazon and Cafa Art Museum launch new projects

Mar 17 , 2023

The CryptoPunks page on OpenSea app is displayed next to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of the CryptoPunks collection by Larva Labs shown on its website, in March 2022. Photo: Reuters

When NFT artist Beeple made history selling his artwork Everydays: The First 5000 Days for US$69 million back in 2021, the landmark sale spurred a movement and wider interest in digital art

While the number of transactions of NFT sales in the art world increased in 2022, sales plummeted by 94 per cent later as a result of the tumultuous cryptocurrency market – so where does it stand now?

“I guess when I started it wasn’t as front-page news and it was a bit slow, then Beeple went boom and it started exploding.” Szabotage – a contemporary and street artist and designer who has seen his own success in NFT art – is referring to the record-breaking sale of Beeple’s NFT artwork Everydays: The First 5000 Days for US$69 million in 2021.

The sale spearheaded a movement and interest in digital art, which was driven by an entirely new generation of art consumers. But since the landmark sale, NFT art has had to weather several storms. According to a report by Elliptic, thefts and crypto scams have led to more than US$100 million worth of NFTs being stolen between July 2021 and July 2022. The highest valued stolen NFT, CryptoPunk#4324, was later sold for US$490,000.

Vocal, Do You Speak Szabotage (2022) NFT. Photo: Szabotage

Secondly, according to a report by Artprice.com, while the number of transactions for NFT sales in the art world increased marginally in 2022, sale turnover plunged by 94 per cent as a result of changes in the tumultuous cryptocurrency market.

But that’s not to say the movement has ground to a halt. “I would say it has slowed down a bit, but that’s normal,” says Szabotage, who is currently working on an NFT project that will be used to raise funds for a charity. There continues to be an active involvement among corporates, too, he says.

Ride the bitcoin by Szabotage. Photo: Szabotage

And in China, Cafa Art Museum in Beijing is currently playing host to “Crypto Art: A New Possibility”, the largest cryptographic digital art exhibition of its kind in the country to date, according to the Global Times. The exhibition – which features a wide range of mediums including digital art – is a collaboration between Cafa Art Museum and the Dynamic Art Museum in Milan, and features works from 46 creators hailing from 21 countries.

Elsewhere, reports are circulating that Amazon is preparing to launch an NFT marketplace in April, in part to meet the demand among collectors and those who see the investment potential in NFT art.

“With the bubble and speculation that was around NFTs in the early days, it sadly took away from the conversation around the art itself,” Christopher Y. Lew, chief artistic director of Outland, a platform dedicated to discussions on digital technologies, told Artsy. “Now that things have calmed down, we’re coming back around to really talk about, ‘What is the artwork?’”