How a Growing Number of Nigerian Artists are Leveraging on NFTs
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Nigerian artists have joined the world in embracing the digital part of art through Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
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Non-fungible tokens are units of digital content that are stored on the blockchain
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How have Nigerian harnessed the growing market of digital art? Find out here
Despite a ban on cryptocurrencies in Nigeria, Nigerian artists leveraging on the growing market of digital arts and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
What are NFTs?
An NFT is a unit of data on the blockchain that can be used to represent art, music, and videos.
Although NFTs have been in existence for 7 years, they only became a popular way of selling art recently.
NFTs are built in the same vein as cryptocurrencies but they are quite different from those digital assets.
Unlike cryptocurrencies which are fungible (exchangeable), every NFT has its own digital mark which makes it impossible to exchange for another.
Back to the story.
You must have seen the headline of NFT sales, one of the popular ones being the sale of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet for $2.9 million.
You must be thinking, How do you sell a tweet?
The tweet remains available on Twitter but the buyer received a digitally signed certificate to verify his ownership.
With the growing acceptance of NFTs, Nigerian artists can do more than display their art in a gallery.
CNN spoke to a Nigerian artist, Osinachi who claims to make up to 5 figures for his digital art.
Osinacha claims that the NFT art world was boosted by the pandemic because collectors could no longer visit galleries to purchase art, causing them to buy online.
Another CNN-interviewed artist Rich Allea stated that the major constraint of digital art in Africa is the lack of technical knowledge.
On the bright side, this can be rectified by classes and empowerment programmes is to educate traditional artists.
As soon as they find that there are unending opportunities they’ll jump onboard.
Nigerians will also have to find a way around the government crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
However, with so many pros and few cons, the NFT is one that Nigerian artists will greatly benefit from.
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