Bryan Brinkman is a vanguard of sorts. An Emmy-award winning digital artist before blockchain and NFTs took off, he has reoriented himself in recent years for the new digital economy. In an exclusive interview, BeInCrypto asked Brinkman about the fair pricing and valuation of NFT collections, the future of commercial art, and more.
If there is one technology that can claim to be among the least understood, it is non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Far from just expensive monkey pictures, NFTs open up a new paradigm of digital ownership. With verifiable authenticity and scarcity, they have replicated a sense that digital items can be unique, just like their real-world counterparts.
Whereas digital art arguably lost much of its value when digitized thanks to copy-and-paste, NFTs and blockchains make the original traceable and verifiable. In doing so, they have empowered creators, artists, and collectors by fostering a new digital economy based on scarcity. A digital asset or artwork now really can be one-of-a-kind.
With NFTs, artists have found unprecedented opportunities to showcase and sell their work directly to a global audience, revolutionizing traditional notions of artistic success and opening doors to previously untapped revenue streams.
A Contracting NFT Market
Bryan Brinkman is one such artist. An Emmy award-winner who (in his own words) uses “animation and motion graphics to create fun and playful works about the crypto-verse.” Last May, the 37-year-old also signed with Creative Artists Agency for representation, one of the world’s leading talent rosters.
Since then, the NFT market has experienced a marked decline, according to data from CoinGecko. After reaching $3.6 billion in trade volume for the month of May 2022, the market suffered a sharp downturn due to the collapse of Terra/Luna and the subsequent crash across the entire digital asset market.
Recent numbers haven’t been much better. Trading volume declined further this past month, from $826 million in April to $442 million in May, according to DappRadar figures.
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In his interview with BeInCrypto, Brinkman observed that although perceptions of NFTs can be skewed, the low barriers to adoption bode well for future growth.
“I’ve watched the understanding of NFTs grow substantially since I joined the space three years ago, but it’s not always positive,” he said. “Early NFT articles favored fear and sensationalism, so many walked away with skepticism about the technology. That is a barrier we will have to break on an individual level, but over time I’ve seen the perceptions shift.”
Brinkman described what he sees as the global power of blockchain. But barriers to adoption remain, he acknowledged. One such barrier is wealth, given that participants must have money and certain technologies, such as smartphones or computers.
But on the technology front, the barrier is not insurmountable. According to data from Statistica, in 2022, 68% of the global population owned a smartphone. (Although others put it as high as 86%.) Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, where ownership is at its lowest, it’s 64%.
Pricing Your NFTs
In the short time that NFTs have been around, their numbers have exploded. OpenSea—only the second-largest NFT marketplace but for a long time the most dominant—has over 80 million different NFTs for trade.
With an apparently unlimited supply (there is no theoretical limit to the number of NFTs you can mint or digital ink you can spill), how does the market decide their value?
Like everything else for sale, art valuations have to do with demand, said Brinkman.
“It takes a lot of data to have accuracy within such a short timeframe, especially in a bear market. Once we go through a few up and down cycles, it’ll probably be easier to use that historical data to give accurate estimates.”
Brinkman also offered practical advice for artists navigating the digital asset space. “I recommend starting with single works, allowing people to decide the price via auction,” he said.
“Once you complete those auctions, you can think about editions. If your 1/1 sells for 1 ETH, then an edition of 10 can be priced at .1 ETH. I recommend pricing things affordably early. That allows people to support you, be a part of your journey, and help share your work,” Brinkman continued.
A Community, Not a Marketplace
One of the buzzwords in web3 is the term “community” to emphasize the decentralized and inclusive nature of platforms and technologies. While the term can have good and bad uses, Brinkman believes it’s a fair descriptor for the world of NFTs. But, in what sense is this market more united or communal than the market, say, for sneakers or smartphones?
“Unlike sneakers or smartphones, art doesn’t degrade from wear and tear,” said Brinkman. “But, overall, I would say that NFTs and sneakers are pretty similar in a lot of ways. Collecting work that you can flex and express yourself with.”
One of the most common refrains from NFT-skeptics is that they have “no intrinsic value.” Brinkman could not disagree more.
“To me, the future of art is digital, and with more people having access to creation tools like iPads and computers at a young age, the digital artist market is going to become more validated and valued,” he said.
NFTs By SMS
One of Brinkman’s latest collaborations is with the direct-to-consumer curated art platform, Dew Drops. The standout feature? NFT collecting via SMS. Collectors receive a text with details about the day’s offerings, including artist, artwork, utility, rarities, and pricing. They then reply with desired quantity to purchase seamlessly.
Brinkman told BeInCrypto of his excitement for the new platform, which launched this year. He loves playing with innovations that can entice collectors, Brinkman said.
“With text messages, we can market more directly than Twitter or Discord, allowing the onboarding process to be more seamless with credit cards. I also appreciate that Dew Drops will introduce subscribers to lots of new artists and help with discoverability,” he added.
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