One of the more interesting aspects of NFTs was the prerequisite technological knowledge required to participate in this process of collecting and investing in what seems to be a burgeoning market. Whereas purchasing art in a more physical and tangible medium is easier, venturing into an auction house, winning with the highest bid, and being handed one’s newly acquired artwork once the check clears, purchasing NFTs seems like it has some added hoops to jump through. For instance, users must know how to set up their cryptocurrency wallet, in addition to maintaining a continuously roving eye on all transactions as there are no methods to rectify mistakes. Something as mundane in the non-cryptocurrency realm, such as transferring funds to the incorrect party or adding an extra zero to the sum transferred can easily be corrected with a call to one’s bank. That option simply does not exist with NFTs; all transactions are final. Additionally, the immutable structure of the blockchain forces potential wrongdoers to target the owner rather than the work, forcing owners to exercise increased security measure to prevent themselves being hacked. The most humorous, yet ironic aspect regarding extra precautions against digital intrusions, is that the most secure method in storing credentials resides in a physical medium that possesses no way of being accessed digitally. It is poetic in some way that a technological medium which has become increasingly utilized in place of a physical medium, partially in fact to the notion digital is more secure, itself maintains a potential weakness that can unilaterally be circumvented by reverting to a physical medium.
I think one of the benefits of NFT’s inherent security features is the potential to reduce fraud in the art community. The downside of physical pieces such as paintings and sculptures are that with enough time and resources, a high-quality forgery can be crafted, with such believability that prospective buyers and institutions can find themselves believing they own an original. Especially with art that has changed hands in many different methods through centuries of history, owners and lineage can become especially tricky to navigate, making authentication more difficult. With blockchain technology, there are no questions about who owns a piece, for example, in the case of CryptoPunks, there exists a publicly viewable ledger that not only holds information about the current owner but a record of all previous owners. In combination with an incorruptible blockchain, there virtually exists no plausible manner for one to lie about ownership or defraud someone with a well-made forgery, at least not in this moment in time.
On an ending note, the sole aspect that has remained a sour constant for me is that art ownership remains a playground exclusively reserved for the rich, even this new medium. The largest barrier to art such as CryptoPunks is not the technological mumbo jumbo one might need to know but the potential seven figure price tag that accompanies a single CryptoPunk. At the risk of sounding even more pessimistic, it is mindboggling to me that anyone would spend up to twenty times the price of a year’s tuition at DU to own a collection of pixels that can be freely viewed at any time with a simple Google Search.