What’s All About?

What is Crypto Art & How do I make money from selling my art as an NFT?

You know that I’m a stock photographer for many years now. You can see my portfolio here. I’m just about to step into a new field now, called Crypto Art. “Silky Way Art” is my professional name which contains my name in English.

So, what is Crypto Art? Crypto Art is a piece of metadata (including, generally- an image or link to an image/file, the creator of that file, datestamps, associated contracts or text, and the purchaser of the piece) which is attached to a “token” (which has monetary value on a marketplace) and stored in a blockchain. An individual piece of Crypto Art is called an NFT.

What is an NFT? You can think of each NFT (Non-Fungible Token) as a trading card or a collectible with an individual value that is also affected by the general market value of NFTs as a concept, the Ethereum network, and cryptocurrency in general. Meaning that an NFT is a special token representing a unique ID that cannot be replicated and is used to create verified digital ownership. NFT is also used in applications that offer Crypto Art, Crypto Gaming, Crypto Collectibles, and more. The NFT is tokenized or minted which means it is put onto something called a Blockchain, a Blockchain is a permanent ledger that is accessible on computers globally. Crypto Art is Bitcoin in the physical form of art. It is a literal combination of art, technology, and money. Each piece is a hand-assembled limited edition giclée print with the unique ability to store digital currency.

So a question you may have asked yourself, such as “Why can’t people just download the image?” — the short answer is, they can. They can download the image and have the file saved on their computer forever. However, that same piece they have downloaded is not worth anything compared to the 1/1 NFT you sold to someone for $2,000+ because it is not original nor worth the same value. You cannot sell a copy of a printed/downloaded image at the original price.

You can go online and buy a painting that Pablo Picasso or Vincent Van Gogh made for less than $50, however that is not near the same value of what it is worth (millions) because it’s not the original copy. So when you upload an NFT to a platform, the value is 100x more than when someone can download your image.

Where can I sell my NFT & How do I get started?

There is a variety of platforms in recent years that allow you to sell NFTs (MakersPlace, Foundation, KnownOrigin) and you need a wallet for them. You have to make a wallet (Coinbase or Binance) online and connect through MetaMask and then make sure to buy some ETH (Ethereum) through Coinbase (or Binance). You need some starting crypto money for gas fees when you tokenize/mint an artwork on the blockchain. Keep in mind, you’ll receive money in crypto such as Ethereum which can be traded into your normal currency (USD, TRY). You can track the gas fee from this Ethereum Gas Tracker link.

So, where do you start? — Once you have your wallet set up you can go over to Foundation and connect your MetaMask wallet. When you have your Foundation account made, you will be able to create a 1/1 collectible; then go on uploading your artwork on here and set the price.