January 24, 2022
A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is a blockchain authenticated digital asset which is immutable and transparent. Digital art creators and collectors have been growing in large numbers since 2021 across the globe.
One of the largest NFT marketplaces in the world, OpenSea, holds the majority of NFT creators and collectors in its kitty. It traded as much as $25 billion worth of NFTs in 2021.
Anyone can mint their artwork or digitally available proof-of-talent into an NFT by creating a visual piece of it using OpenSea.
‘The Death of Open Sea’
Earlier this month, a New York-based Web 3.0 and NFT educator, Mec.eth, started a constructive criticism against OpenSea called “The Death of Opensea” using her Twitter-based NFT community. She hosted an 18-hour long Twitter Space where as many as 15 thousand NFT creators and collectors participated in a pitch for a community-based decentralized NFT marketplace. They also criticised the highly centralised behaviour of OpenSea management and higher transaction fees.
In the second part of The Death of OpenSea, she discussed “How We Move Forward” in the NFT ecosystem to capitalise on potential digital assets by avoiding intermediaries. In the eight-hour-long Twitter Space, she highlighted the major loopholes such as monopoly, higher gas fee and commission, and centralised nature of OpenSea. She finally urged experienced NFT creators and collectors to create an autonomous and community governed Marketplace.
Girish Ahirwar, who is building a creator-owned multichain protocol with creators as a part of his firm Create Protocol , believes in an effort to make artists and creators independent and give them freedom to do whatever they want with their creations and art works in the decentralised ecosystem.
“At its forefront, the decentralised NFT marketplace empowers artists with the motive of the “Create To Earn” revolution,” he said, adding: “The future of creation is distributed and the power is in the hands of creators. The decentralised creator economy is here.”
NFT in India
The Indian NFT marketplace is just six-month young and its popularity is spreading like a wildfire among celebrities and social media platforms. Indian mainstream, however, fine art and auction houses are still in “wait and see” mode. Most precisely, mainstream artists and creators are keeping themselves away from the NFT-led buzz due to regulatory uncertainties.
Binance-owned Indian crypto exchange, WazirX, also launched India’s first NFT marketplace in mid-2021 to cater to fine art, fashion, music, and gaming communities. It onboarded India’s top fashion designer Manish Malhotra and Lakme Fashion Show and music concert giant Sunburn in the second half of 2021.
Manish Pandey became the first Indian to list his exclusive NFT collection using Ethereum’s second layer blockchain Polygon (MATIC). He has also minted a set of photos using OpenSea marketplace.
He compares himself to a five-year-old kid in the blockchain segment who wants to learn more about this fascinating decentralised and democratised technology. “NFT is solving the problem of digital assets’ copyright with the help of smart contracts,” Pandey told the Blockchain Asset Review. “I like the process, and it’s quite transparent and clean,” he said.
About the author
Anuj Chaudhary is a blockchain and crypto analyst who writes white papers and research analysis on decentralized technology-powered businesses and their use cases.
A cryptocurrency enthusiast, Anuj previously tracked the Canadian crypto and blockchain industry at Kalkine Media. In his previous stint with BloombergQuint, he covered financial developments from the US and Europeanmarkets.
