Source: LT Art.
What makes digital art so attractive to art buyers and why is it a good art investment?
It is no secret: NFTs and digital art have been shaking up the art market for the last year, and it probably won’t stop anytime soon. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are unique metadata referring to a specific asset. As their name suggests, they are non-fungible and indivisible. When an NFT is acquired, the purchase goes through a blockchain, which is a digital record of any transaction ever made with that NFT.
The NFT mania has come in pair with the great explosion of cryptoart’s popularity, allowing digital art to be commercialised by major art institutions and third-party platforms. NFTs and cryptoart are, beyond a revolutionary movement, a reflection of the time we live in, filled with technologies and technical evolutions. But what makes digital art so attractive to art buyers and why is it a good art investment? Here are 5 reasons to invest in digital art.
1. NFTs, digital art and online sales keep booming in 2021, promising positive growth in the future
Whereas physical sales dropped in 2020, due to the pandemic, online sales reached a record high of $12.4 billion, doubling in value from 2019 according to the Art Basel and UBS 2021 report. Earlier this month, the Art Basel and UBS mid-year review 2021 reported that online sales accounted for 37% of the sales made by art dealers for the first half of 2021. An increasing number of new art buyers chose online channels to purchase art whilst 25% of online buyers were art collectors choosing to purchase art online for the first time. Meanwhile, the NFT Report 2020 stated that the Non-Fungible Tokens market had grown by 299% in 2020.
The growth of online sales and NFTs coherently induced increasing commercialisation of cryptoart, which gained approval and demand from the art community. However, its popularity is not solely due to changing art purchasing behaviours or cryptoart’s trendy status. Social media and lockdowns undoubtedly participated in the growing popularity of digital art as the use of online third-party platforms and Instagram by art buyers increased between 2020 and the first half of 2021. Moreover, digital art’s popularity results from its similarities with physical art. Just like traditional forms of art, cryptoart’s acclaim emerges from a passion for art, an emotional response to an art piece or any other feeling that makes our relationship with art so special. With digital art, the desire of owning an original piece remains untouched. Overall, online sales and NFTs’ booming predicts a promising future for digital art that might gain more and more value in the coming years and months.