The world’s first permanent NFT art museum has recently been opened to the public in Seattle, Washington State. The primary goal of this museum is to make blockchain based digital art accessible to all in physical form. This museum was first opened on January 14th, and this year there are several plans pertaining to the expansion of the museum. Being one of the prime museums of the century, it will be housing popular NFT artists and their work.
In a recent development, the Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a type of digital asset that have become increasingly popular recently. Due to such vivid opportunities, many NFT artworks have been valued up to crores and billions of rupees. According to records, these NFTs are stored on the blockchain, which is a record of the transcripts on the networked computers. Simply put, one considers these NFTs like physical artwork, whose value is constantly changing. With the museum opening at the beginning of the year, all artists, creators and collectors are getting the opportunity to showcase their NFTs in a physical setting. The purpose of this museum is also to make people aware about the new market of digital art and to give it a public space for acceptance by the normal mass. Jennifer Wang, the curator and co-founder of the Seattle NFT Museum, told the media: “We discover the impact of this type of art when it is viewed carefully.”
The renowned local digital artist, Maksim Sergi, participated in the museum’s ‘Climate Conversation’ exhibition this month, featuring his designs, which have been sold online as NFTs. Sergey said, “Earlier if you used to create digital artwork or physical artwork, there were a lot of limits on who could see them and who could buy them.” Sergi himself is involved in the tech industry and is part of a crypto-based venture. According to a recent report shared by the Irish research and market firm in March, the value of the global NFT market can reach $ 21 billion (about Rs 1,60,698 crore) in the year 2022. The co-founder of the museum, Peter Hamilton, told the media, “NFT tokens are contracts that have a serial number associated with a piece of art, and if you own the token, you are also the owner of the artwork.”
The museum authorities have drawn up its expansion plan for this entire year and will work on the educational part along with the existing artwork. Hamilton further reiterated on this, “The less I emphasize how important the educational part of the museum is. We are helping people understand the value of NFTs, and this museum is also revealing the possibilities of blockchain.” Talking about the most expensive non-fungible token, there is a video ‘Everydays – the first 5000 days’. The video has been created by an artist named Meeple, whose real name is Mike Winkleman. This video is a compilation video of several artworks made by Beeple.
