“I’d love to mint something with you” — Tamiko Thiel

In the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art New York. Commissioned for the exhibition: “Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018“
September 28, 2018 – April 14, 2019

NFTs brought digital art (generative, AI, robotic, and so on) to a completely new realm of public attention. That’s the main point of the ongoing paradigm shift. To start digging this new territory the conversation hosted by Victoria Vesna with

Alex May
Anuradha Vikram
Christiane Paul
Tamiko Thiel

is a good start.

What is a Nifty

Digital Items have existed for a long time.
For example, a skin in Fortnite, or a sword in World of Warcraft, or a Neopet.

Until now, you could never really own a digital item.

If your World of Warcraft account goes away, your sword disappears forever. Pretty weird!

Imagine if Nike shutting down meant your Air Jordans would dissapear forever …. that doesn’t make any sense!

Blockchain technology has changed this.

A Nifty is a digital item you can truly own.

Nifties live on a blockchain, so no one can ever take them away from you, not even the person who created them.

Nifty Gateway lets you buy, sell, trade, & display your Nifties.

The invention a NFT

At a hackathon in 2014, digital artist Kevin McCoy and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash invented Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
The first NFT ever minted is a pixelated octagon that changes colour like a frightened octopus. Entitled Quantum, it will go under the hammer alongside works by Larva Labs, Anna Ridler, Mario Klingemann, and Sarah Zucker, among others, in a sale co-curated by Sotheby’s and Robert Alice.
The auction, entitled Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale, will open for bidding online from 3–10 June.

—in Ocula

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This post is an integral part of my notes on NFTs take off,
a unique online conference on crypto-art and NFTs @ The House of Thoughts, a section of The New Art Fest ’20 ’21.