Non fungible tokens, the equivalent of physical art pieces in digital world seem to have matured through their initial boom and bust in winter into solid art collectors investment alternative.

We have looked at three NFT types and signs that our art directors, illustrators & crypto friends are looking for, when considering a purchase.

1 Look for the rarities of the future

Spotting the legends in the making, is probably the hardest, if not impossible part.

Buying art means, that you buy the story of its author. Since the NFT world is super young, it does not mean that you have to search only for Damien Hirsts in digital form (alt-ought there are some). In fact, buying over expensive art from established real life artists is very conservative strategy.

The beauty of NFT market is in fact, that anyone can discover, or even establish an artist legend. You can buy your digital art dirty cheap from almost unknown artist today. If the artist is good storyteller, you might have nice chance to hold a future rare art.

Spotting “future legends” is nearly as hard as predicting future, but here are few tips:

a. Make sure artist creates digital art in real sense, not just jpegs. This means his portfolio is using extensively the potential of digital environment. If you like illustrator, look for micro animations.

b. If you like sophisticated souls, look for hidden narratives across the portfolio or robust myth making.

c. If you are after craft, look for richness in elements, colours or lines. Or if you are into simplicity, make sure you are buying a “well designed” simple art, that makes sense, just like any design poster you would hang on your wall. In other words, give it a thought. Think about what you are buying. Make sure you like it.

Minty Art Collective NFT by Bessa

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2 Story is between the lines. Or, in the ledger.

On Blockchain, you are part of the story. While NFT market is in its beginnings, it is important to acknowledge one feature of Ethereum blockchain. Each ownership, ownership transfer or even just a bid in art auction is recorded into public ledger, visible to everyone. This means, when you are bidding, or buying art, your address will be recorded in Etherscan ledger. While some people prefer to keep anonymous addresses, with just a hodge-podge signs, others tend to use their names.

All of this creates strange mix in public ledger, which is connected forever to each NFT, and in fact, it creates another, very digital layer of an art piece.

NFT ARTIST:
Above is illustration by Michiel Baumgarten, a member of MAC, currently working hard on his drop. Follow MAC to be the first to know.

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3 On-chain or off-chain?

Rare 64 bit color NFT from colorverse.io

Storing big art files on Ethereum blockchain today would be expensive, so most files are saved either to IPFS (inter-planetary-file system) or to other cloud storage. It is always important to make sure, the NFT has properly solved the off-chain storage, because while your contract in blockchain is forever and permanent, the file storage, where it points, might be not.
Therefore, when buying off-chain (literary all complex and data heavy rare digital art files, have to be off-chain), make sure it is properly saved and secured, ideally on decentralised cloud solution such as IPFS.

Other option is getting pure on-chain solution, where in essence, all the “art” is part of the code.
Generative onchain art has grew into one of the best investments in NFT world, pioneered by Larva Labs and their Autoglyphs Collection, and than hugely expanded by Art Blocks, with floor prices rising sky-high.

However, it does not mean that you have to spend thousands for piece of on-chain code. There are other collections, some nimble and cute, such as Ascii Punks, where whole silhouette of punk is hosted directly in code, or some collection, which are almost meta, like colorverse.io, where you simple invest in getting, well a hexadecimal color, stored completely onchain.

Ascii Punk #1054 by Ascii Punks

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While the NFT market has its early hyperbolic craze probably behind, it is here to stay. And, even in terms of the internet age – it is still relatively young. There is lot of potential, and most importantly, ton of opportunity to invest in rare pieces of digital art, while they only cost only couple of ethers. One day, maybe not so far from today, this would be seen as a bargain.