Making art, making value online: NFTs, Blockchains and online art economies

Journal article

In recent years, cryptocurrencies have emerged as alternative forms of currency. These technologies were adapted to create Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), unique digital identifiers that can trace the provenance and ownership of online media. Despite often lacking property rights over the represented media, these tokens sell in large volumes online, and their supportive communities are vast and exist in both art and economic spheres. This paper explores the various communities that support NFTs from different perspectives. While NFTs have received significant media attention, this study aims to show that many aspects of the technologies and beliefs behind NFTs are grounded in earlier social movements, cryptographic techniques, and attitudes within art and economics. The digitisation of physical-world phenomena, such as the notion of an object biography (Kopytoff, 1986), is also recognised. NFTs’ provision of a restricted means for art to exist on a blockchain recalls Walter Benjamin’s (1936) concept of the aura. The paper also situates the history of blockchain technology within the context of cypherpunks, a 1990s punk-cryptography movement. The legacy of the cypherpunks and the new infrastructures and affordances that NFTs offer to the Internet are related to the values, communities, and future aspirations held by the online social networks that support NFTs. The paper argues that NFTs possess an affective force among these groups, allowing them to endure as enchanted digital sites of future promises despite constant threats of deception, volatile markets, and scams.

Authors: Cooke, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Anthropological Society
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Volume: 16
• Pages: 23-50
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2024-12-13
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yj9aa9ddb
• EISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: cryptocurrencies; digital; NFTs; art; economic; JASO