I was in high school during the search engine wars. Every month, a new site would become the engine of choice down in the computer lab. It was an exciting time to be alive.
And: I was making online video in the mid-2000s. Over the span of just a few years, a cavalcade, a veritable smorgasbord of video sites popped up. Not wanting to leave any views on the table, you were expected to upload your videos to them all. And I uploaded to ALL of them.
Today, we’re heading straight into a similar Cambrian explosion when it comes to sites that will democratize the process of buying and selling art on the blockchain.
CRYPTO ART PRIMER
If you’re new to Crypto Art, much of what follows will not make any sense. Luckily, there’s some great resources for wrapping your brain around the phenomenon. I’d start with this 6 minute video made by yours truly. And if you want to go deeper, read these three Medium posts by Matt Condon and Rkey— they’re an invaluable resource for getting started.
CRYPTO ART EXPLOSION!
Rare Pepe Wallet burst on the scene, now Punks and Kitties roam among us, and the next logical step in this progression is a user-friendly platform and marketplace that makes the tokenization and sale of digital creations easy for everyone.
There’s a ton of people working on this and they’re all launching in the next few months. It’s fascinating to watch it come together; each company has a unique spin on the idea of democratizing CryptoArt.
There’s three lenses through which I want to look at each of these companies.
- Their overall focus and feel.
- How they deal with the complexity of using blockchain technology (because even for many of the tech-savvy among us, it ain’t easy).
- Curation — both in terms of surfacing “good” work and dealing with spam/people uploading work that’s not their own.
In addition, there’s some other basic questions to consider when looking at these companies including:
- Are they using ERC-721 or a different token? And related: How do they handle royalties?
One of the most difficult choices these platforms are having to make is whether or not to implement some version of royalties. It’s an obvious benefit to putting one’s work on the blockchain: You can get paid a percentage of every single sale of a given work. The downside is that currently you can’t make this happen without modifying how the ERC-721 token works. If you modify that token, then you lock it into one single ecosystem. It won’t play nice with Punks and Kitties and all the other art/collectibles using a standard ERC-721.
- Are they using IPFS?
IPFS, or InterPlanetary File System, is a decentralized way for hosting files. It’s a lot like BitTorrent. The important thing for these platforms, from my perspective, is that if your files are hosted on IPFS, then it doesn’t matter if the the platform goes out of business tomorrow: Your files are still there. You can move from one platform to another easily, or build your own front end entirely.
- What types of media can you tokenize?
- What fees do they take?
- What is their funding model?
THE PLATFORMS
R.A.R.E
OVERALL FOCUS: All of these companies have it in their mission to help artists make more money. For R.A.R.E, it’s right in their slogan: “Artists Deserve More”. R.A.R.E is taking a lot of their cues from the traditional art market, but they’re also using some of the trappings of that world for wildly different purposes.
COMPLEXITY: Take, for instance, their method for dealing with the complexity of the blockchain: Non-tech savvy artists can work with an “Auctioneer” to get their artworks onto the platform.
The Auctioneer handles everything from the actual tokenizing of the artwork (uploading it to IPFS, tagging it, etc) to paying the gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain. They can also help promote and facilitate the sale of the artist’s work. They set their own commission rate, taking a piece of every sale. In one sense, it seems like an added layer of complexity, but if it works, it could be a fantastic way to bring in artists who otherwise would have no interest in selling their work this way. And, importantly, an artist who has the tech-smarts to handle it can be their own Auctioneer.
CURATION: Curation is a huge part of R.A.R.E’s platform. They are using a Token Curated Registry. Here’s how Matt and Rkey deftly explain what that is:
A token-curated registry is a method of using the crowd to decide whether or not something belongs in a group of other things. For example, AdChain is using a token-curated registry (TCR) to keep track non-fraudulent publishers. TCRs use tokens to keep track of the voting rights within the network, making the token’s value grow as the popularity and valuation of the registry it manages grows.
The R.A.R.E platform will have it’s own token, which can be traded for Ethereum, called the RARE Token. Artists can be paid in either ETH or the RARE Token. And to do common tasks on the platform, you’ll have to “stake” a token, to make the thing you’re doing have weight.
For instance, to submit an artwork, you have to “stake” it with a token. That token then sits there, waiting for someone to challenge your submission. I might want to challenge your submission because, let’s say, you’re uploading a work that you didn’t create. I’d stake my own RARE token as a “challenge stake”. If my challenge is correct, I get my token back, plus the token that you staked when you submitted. If I’m wrong, I lose my token.
There’s a lot more to it, and I highly suggest reading through their whitepaper for all the finer points.
Read: RARE’s Whitepaper
IPFS: Yes
Token: ERC-721
Fees: Depends on the Auctioneer
Royalties: No
Types of media: All
Funding: Venture capital, eventually
Archetype
OVERALL FOCUS: Archetype is all about the meme economy. If that phrase makes you think of Pepe and Nyan Cat, you’re partly right, but ultimately we’re talking about the word “meme” in it’s original meaning: Any idea that spreads from one person to another. Basically, Archetype wants to create a marketplace for anyone to tokenize literally anything.
[Editors note — I had this idea that you could tokenize bad things that the GOP does, like say, ending DACA. So you’d tokenize this thing, called “The GOP Ends DACA”, create 100 copies of it, sell them all and then donate the proceeds to an immigrants rights organization. This is the kind of thing you could put on Archetype, alongside memes, gifs, songs, videos, etc]
Archetype is hugely ambitious, and has the potential become something like the Reddit of the blockchain (thought Steemit currently has that claim to fame), but I think a lot of it depends on whether the internet-meme-heavy early users can create a welcoming culture.
COMPLEXITY: Archetype is trying to make it as easy as possible for anyone, absolutely anyone to tokenize their own ideas. They are abstracting away the blockchain as much as possible. They’re working on a way to tie people’s wallet hash to their email. So if you want to send ARCH (their proprietary token) to someone, you just need their email.
CURATION: Archetype is putting all their faith in the community, and in this way, is truly decentralized. Just like on Reddit, the most interesting ideas and work will rise to the top. Only in this instance, like with RARE (and SteemIT), for things to get voted up, folks will have to stake their ARCH Tokens.
Again, I’m only skimming the surface here, so be sure to read the Whitepaper!
Read: Archetype’s Whitepaper
IPFS: Yes
Token: ERC-A1 — An Archetype specific token
Fees: Just gas
Royalties: No
Types of media: All
Funding: None
SUPER RARE
OVERALL FOCUS: Super Rare is a stripped down, no nonsense way of selling and buying work on the blockchain. They’re looking for an Instagram-like experience, but where you can buy the images you see.
They’re currently the only platform offering royalties to artists: The artist keeps 100% of the initial sale of your work, and then they keep 10% of all secondary sales (this is similar to the model that DADA.nyc pioneered).
COMPLEXITY: If you’re already somewhat familiar with the world of CryptoArt and Collectibles, Pixura at launch will be totally straightforward: They’re using MetaMask.
Sometime after launch, they’ll be looking to integrate with mobile browsers like Toshi, CipherBrowser, Status, which can be less cumbersome than MetaMask. Ultimately, they’re hoping to find their own way around this problem, eventually getting to the point where folks could use their phone as a kind of 2 factor authentication device for transactions.
Also, at launch, they will not have a way to upload directly to IPFS. Instead, you’ll host your work elsewhere, point them to the image you want to tokenize, and they’ll send that link to IPFS.
CURATION: As long as they’re small enough for it to be feasible, Super Rare will be working directly with each and every artist that wants to be on the platform, and in this way, it will be highly curated.
Eventually, their long term plan is to implement some version of a Token Curated Registry.
More info:
Read: SuperRare FAQ
IPFS: Yes
Token: Modified ERC-721
Fees: Just gas + 3% of secondary sales of artwork
Royalties: Yes - 10% of secondary sales
Types of media: Pictures only for now, eventually everything
Funding: Venture capital, eventually
FanBits
OVERALL FOCUS: FanBits is targeting a whole different audience from everyone else in this space. They’re not going after “Artists”, per se, but “Internet Creators”. They’re looking for the YouTubers and the Twitch streamers — people with existing large audiences. These folks probably don’t know much about blockchain, or CryptoArt for that matter, but if they can grok the opportunity for creating and selling new, interesting digital goods, it’d be a big win for everybody. FanBits is being created in SF (all the other ones I’ve mentioned so far are on the East Coast), and it feels more like an SF company. I don’t know if I can quantify that, exactly, but it feels less “blockchain-y” than the others, and more in the traditional tech world.
COMPLEXITY: FanBits, like Archetype, are trying to abstract away the blockchain as much as possible. Since the creators they are going after all most likely don’t have any experience using this technology, they’re starting off by personally helping every creator get their work up and for sale.
CURATION: Because of this, the site will, at first, be highly curated and tightly controlled.
READ: FanBits.com
IPFS: No
Token: Modified ERC-721
Fees: Yes — small fee
Royalties: Yes — small cut
Types of media: Pictures only
Funding: Venture capital, eventually
OTHER PLATFORMS
I’ve focused here only on companies using Ethereum to tokenize artwork, but there’s a number of folks working with Bitcoin and Counter Party as well. If there’s enough interest, I may update the post to include them.
And, if you have a platform you’re making, please reach out! I’d love to hear about it and include it in this post.
CONCLUSION
While it’s WAY to early to tell what’s going to happen here, one thing I know for sure is that the CryptoArt community is small and passionate, and the relationship between these companies is, as Jason Bailey puts it, one of “coopetition” more than straight up war. Most of these folks know each other, and are actively talking with one another, trading ideas and helping each other out. I hope it stays that way for as long as possible.
Thanks for reading!
It just so happens that I’m working with a developer, designer and illustrator to bring my own collectible project to life, based around my nearly 10 year long (and on-going!) odyssey of writing a song every single day.
You can read more about that here: Initial Song Offering
