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Crypto Art has Caught Corona

Sunday, March 22nd 2020

Crypto Art has caught the Coronavirus! Symptoms include more art!

Hey Crypo Art enthusiasts! Hope everyone is safe and healthy. This week the opinion piece is on the pandemic’s effect on Cryptoart (range of artwork, events in VR, value in ETH vs. USD) so scroll to the bottom to check it out. We have a section just for Coronavirus themed artwork, classic greatest bidding wars of the week, and a new section that’s here to stay to know about upcoming virtual crypto art events.

Crypto Art Pandemic

A special section for artwork related to the Coronavirus pandemic. Take a look at the greatest bidding wars of the pandemic…

  • “Saddy Bel” by Hackatao for 12.875 ETH at $1,700 USD won by Whaleshark. “Saddy belly wants to be a work that conveys peace and quiet. Now more than ever we need it, many are going crazy and getting aggressive.” - Hackatao. 9 Bids, 4 Bidders #Corona #MP4
  • “PANIC STATIONS” by Xcopy for 12.46 ETH at $1400 USD won by @ethsquiat or Shayne Coplan. “Sorry, this product is unavailable.” is the description. This will go down as one of Xcopy’s greatest artwork’s as it reflects current events which is his most popular style and the artwork brings out satire in the situation. 17 bids, 5 Bidders… Shayne vs. TokenAngel #Corona #GIF Panic stations
  • “Viral madness” by Mlibty for 5.15 ETH or $1,000 USD won by Blockchainbrett or Brett Shear .. yours truly. “Authentic hallucination of a MLIBTY Shadow, whose body temperature is very high. It has not been confirmed to be a coronavirus, so please don’t panic!…” is the description. 10 Bids, 3 Bidders.. Blockchainbrett vs. el_castor #Corona #MP4
  • “Last Luncheon on the Grass” by Alotta Money for 3.6 ETH or $450 USD won by Ekaitza. “Paris, Sunday March the 15th 2020, Undaunted French people decided to show the deadly virus what free will was all about. Many of them defied the mondialist pandemic disease and spent a memorable afternoon in the city’s parks…” is the description. 4 Bids, 4 Bidders. #Corona #GIF Last Luncheon on the Grass
  • “Quarantine” by Undeadlu for 1.85 ETH or $230 USD won by Whaleshark. “We are experiencing an important moment right now, a pandemic that will probably be remembered for long time.” is the description. 12 Bids, 4 Bidders… Whaleshark vs. Visionary. #Corona
  • “HAZMAT SHOPPER” by miss al simpson for 1.133 ETH or $150 USD won by Visionary. “The shelves are empty. Panic rising. Yellow suits worn. Gas masks in place. This is the domain of the Hazmat Shopper.” is the description. 3 Bids, 2 Bidders. #Corona HAZMAT SHOPPING

I have a feeling this section will be here for at least the next couple of editions.

Bidding Wars - no #corona

The greatest crypto art bidding wars of the week!

  • “Breathe In The Bottom And Blow Out The Banks” by Matt Kane for 7.725 ETH or $900 USD won by TokenAngels. “Color and motion study after the 1890 U.S.A. One Dollar Treasury Note.” is the description. This artwork comes at a time when crypto twitter is nonstop talking about the dollar being printed and bitcoin’s scarcity. 16 Bids, 5 Bidders… TokenAngesl vs. Coldie #MP4
  • “The Old Structure” by Alotta Money for 7.21 ETH or $900 USD won by Whaleshark. “Commissioned piece from John McAfee 2020 Campaign, tokenized here with his authorization (I’m not that crazy). Directly inspired from a French propaganda atrwork describing capitalism in 1912. My job was to give it a facelift and some “new” meanings. Original 1912 Artwork : https://i.imgur.com/cUxDf4q.jpg” - is the description. 5 Bids, 3 Bidders. #GIF The Old Structure
  • “Epiphany” by trippyogi for 6.285 ETH or $850 USD won by @ethsquiat. “Our existence takes us on a looping voyage as we spiral inward, and every revolution brings us back to where we once were, with newfound knowledge and experience that only deepens with each passing cycle…” is the description. This is trippyogi’s first artwork on SuperRare. 17 Bids, 6 Bidders. #MP4
  • “Panik” by frenetikvoid for 6.2 ETH or $720 USD won by Whaleshark. Fenetikvoid has a selection of some of the most impressive digital creations with a high price point. Still to this point there’s some very high bids yet to be accepted because of the quality of the artwork. 1 Bidder, 1 Bid.
  • “Do You Love Me?” by TwistedVacancy for 5.675 ETH or $700 USD won by @ethsquiat. “Do you love me?” She asked “Trapped here with You is the last thing i wish for” She said.” is the description. Twisted Vacancy has an incredible collection of funky and intricate artworks. He just welcomed Shayne to #teamtwisted and celebrated the rest of his collectors with this tweet. 10 Bids, 3 Bidders… Shayne vs. Whaleshark #MP4

Platform Updates

Virtual Events

Museums may be closed, but VR worlds like Cryptovoxel are open! If you have any events you’d like to share, reach out please.

Shot out of the Week

Highlighting the Crypto Art MVPs week after week. Shot out of the week goes to :

Ben Nolan, the founder and creator of Cryptovoxels. Cryptovoxels is a VR world built on Ethereum where each piece of land is an NFT. He started off building this whole world and it flourished into the centerpiece of crypto art galleries and masterpiece buildings and so much more. For the sake of Crypto Art, it has become the place where every artist and collector can create and show off their art. Thanks to you when people ask, “but how do you show the art if its not physical?” We can say, “I show off my art in my gallery in a 3d world where even the land is a token on the blockchain.”

Crypto Art Caught Corona!

There’s no doubt the Coronoavirus has wreaked havoc across the globe causing medical issues and scare, however, the crypto art industry has reacted fairly positively. Artists have surfaced a wide array of emotions through their artwork, events have moved into VR, and artwork continues to sell. During this global wide shutdown there has been and will be a lot of time to reflect, and it’s great that we can all share our thoughts and convene using new technologies and mediums that are embraced in this community.

Coronavirus Themed Art

It feels like the majority of artwork made has been Corona themed which makes sense. Art and artists are expressing themselves and their styles through their artwork and its amazing.

On the more intense side, this first artwork expresses the seriousness of Corona as it tells a story of what it would feel like to have contracted the virus, with the creation of an MP4 with video and audio. Mlibty created “Viral madness” The visuals are instense red colored and flaring up environments to the sound of a discomferting clicking and beat. Mlibity has a history of using the same shadow figures to express many different themes within his past work. Click here to see the artwork.

On a positive note, this artwork brings out positivity when people need it most, through an MP4 with video and audio. “Saddy Bel” created by Hackatao shows a woman swinging in peace and practically meditating to a uplifting and inspriging audio that makes you feel like everything will be alright. Hackatao detailed stenciling within Saddy and positively colorful backgrounds are recurring themes in his past works. Click here to see the artwork.

Testing the lines of humor, this artwork takes the tough job of making fun of a bad situation, by having a satirical approach towards corona in a GIF format. “PANIC STATIONS” created by Xcopy. This GIF shows someone on ther phone scrolling through an endless list of sould out toilet paper. Coming from Xcopy this is perfect because he’s known for reflecting current events in his work and does an incredible job summing up the humor and fud of everyone rushing to stock up on toilet paper more than any other object. Click here to see the artwork.

Crypto Art Meetups are Thriving

In a time when people cannot leave their homes hanging out with other people virtually is just what people need. It’s just great timing for the crypto art space that we are already inside of VR worlds building crypto art gallery’s people can visit, hosting events like art charity auctions, and just hanging out there in peoples free time.

You can check out upcoming events in this newsletter edition in the VR events section. Instead of going into detail about past events or upcoming events Ill point out where I think the platforms can improve to support this trend. It’s already amazing what you can do in Cryptovoxel for instance, building on land, chatting with people through text or audio by just holding down a letter on your keyboard. The next step is to improve organizing and communication tools in VR. We should have improved tooling around scheduling events, communicating those events into virtual channels, and communicating at those events as if we were in person. Zoom, the communication software, is limited to one thread of conversation and presenting something is always to everyone on the call, whereas with in person situations some poeple can be chatting in groups by proximity and showing something that might not be presented to the entire room.

Value in ETH vs. USD

Artwork is selling! but they’re selling for a bit less than usual, in terms of USD. However the amount of ETH for artists average sale rate has stayed pretty strong. For instance, the 13 ETH sale that was the highest bid price of the week on the Hackatao artwork is above his average and on par with some of his most recent sales, pre-crash. However, that average sale price in ETH used to be when ETH was 200 - 300 USD. Now, with ETH being at 120 USD its significantly less. But we hear from artists that its actually ok because they want to stock up on more ETH.

It’s not the same as physical art. In physical art there is a cost of materials. Of course there is still a cost of time but in a digital realm, artists want to trade their natively digital artwork for natively digital currency and see value in the ETH. That does go to show that the current space of artists are fairly bullish on ETH as an investment.

At the end of the day, how does it affect the collector? Collectors like to think in terms of USD when the price of an ETH is really high and like to think in terms of ETH when the price of an ETH is really low. It’s simple, if I’m going to place a bid on an artwork when the price of ETH is high I want the purchase to be denominated and locked in at its USD price so if ETH ever goes down in value I’ve locked in the USD value on that artwork I own. Therefore, when I resell it on the secondary market I can retain at least the USD value even though the ETH I spend on may be worth way less. On the other hand as a collector when I buy artwork when ETH price in USD is low, I want the resale to be thought of in terms of ETH because when that price of USD to ETH goes up I want it to be at least as valuable as the ETH I spent.

If the market is saying anything about crypto art denomination while this market is dropping, its that people are thinking in terms of ETH. Depending on which way you look at it, it can be good or bad. As a collector I’d say it makes art significantly less attractive in a crashing economy because ETH in the short term might be expected to outperform art at these ETH prices, so I’d rather hold ETH. At the same time there’s just so much amazing art being released! The counterpoint is of course, once the price is high, if it’s the case people still think in terms of ETH then the price of the art holds at least the value of ETH + the incremental value of the art’s appreciation. In that case its double dipping gains. My concern is, will people continue to denominate crypto art in terms of ETH when the price of ETH is high again? My guess would be no, because I’ve seen it before and the collector determines the demand. So if they want it denominated in USD, it will be.

I hope you enjoed the second edition of Crypto ART Digest and stay safe out there! Yours truly, Blockchainbrett

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Published 22 Mar 2020

Bringing you weekly highlights on the exploding crypto art space!Crypto ART Digest on Twitter