Bitcoin can help facilitate payments for artists just as digital artists bring awareness to the use cases of bitcoin.
This is an opinion editorial by Bitcoin Bible, a writer, editor and artist with 25 years of experience in the digital domain.
Art has always had a special relationship with our culture. It has been a constant, enduring through war, industrial revolutions and evolution. It takes many forms, and for a long time, art has been made with whatever tools we’ve had to work with — from the earliest cave paintings to the modern canvas. Now, however, it seems that art has taken a new form — the digital realm.
Digital art is everywhere, and it has triggered a revolution of sorts. No longer is art restricted to paper and pen — now we can create incredible products on the computer, fashioning art from pixels and special effects.
A Multi-Faceted Industry
Nobody can deny that the world of digital art has grown substantially in the last two decades. Once upon a time, people were creating simple images in MS paint. Nowadays, the rise of NFTs has led to substantial interest in digital art.
NFTs in particular exploded into popularity back in 2017. When a blockchain-based game launched with the support of Ethereum, players could collect NFTs of their cats.
This pretty basic premise set the tone for what NFTs could do. People now use them to purchase representations of objects that exist in the real world. Art, music, game assets, and even videos are bought and sold using NFTs. The blockchain keeps a record of every transaction, and if you purchase the NFT, then you become the owner.
Bitcoin is a core part of this revolution because it has become one of the biggest payment methods on offer. As the largest cryptocurrency out there, Bitcoin is used to pay for so many different things including digital art.
Art Created And Sold Online
It’s not just about the NFT world either. We’ve seen a massive uptake in people who are creating digital art and selling it online.
There are entire art pieces that are being created and sold entirely online. It is not exactly surprising to consider that people are using digital software to create artwork, and then selling it on sites like eBay. This kind of art is incredibly popular, because it does offer up a lot of unique opportunities for designs that aren’t conventionally sold elsewhere, and it also means that practically anybody can get into selling art.
A Brand New Culture
So, it is safe to say that a brand-new, exciting culture has emerged from digital art. There are now entire communities that are working together to create art that is based in the digital realm. To this effect, there are a number of different art competitions, including the one currently running by Bitcoin Bible.
There has been a fantastic uptake in the number of people that are beginning to explore the Bitcoin art community for themselves as a result of these kinds of competitions. They are helping to propel adoption and awareness around Bitcoin. It also helps a lot with bringing traditionally physical artists into the digital world. A typically struggling artist may find that they suddenly have a wealth of tools and resources to use in the online world.
What Does The Future Hold For Digital Art?
So, what will the digital art industry do in the future? What is the next step for a juggernaut that has propelled itself to the highest levels of the public consciousness?
Well, we think that growth is inevitable. The idea of digital art will continue to move forward, and will continue to grow, even in the midst of progression is thrilling.
“Bitcoin is extremely powerful and misunderstood. Art is also extremely powerful and misunderstood. That’s why we thought this pairing would perfectly synergise to help spread bitcoin and the creative genius of artists all across the world…
“The point of art is to make the world a better place. The point of bitcoin is to make the world a better place. The artist uses paints to do this, and bitcoin uses code.” — Deacon Kennedy
You now cannot prevent the growth of digital art, because it’s picked up such momentum that it can only continue to permeate culture even more. Furthermore, we think that it will become even more intrinsically linked with cryptocurrency over time, which is nice. Bitcoin will undoubtedly continue to be a key payment method, which will work well in the long term as its adoption continues.
Obviously, it’s difficult to immediately tell what that will mean for digital art as a whole. It’s important to recognize that the culture does grow and develop, and whether or not digital art will outpace traditional art or exist in the same space remains to be seen. They are going to collide eventually, arguably, in quite a big way, because digital art is a new contender for people's interests, and traditional art is obviously a very fixed, established way of creating.
Final Thoughts
So, digital art is something which is growing all the time. It’s a big commodity now, because people like the idea of getting modern, fresh takes on art. After all, art is, at the basic level, a very interpretive medium.
Modern art takes many different forms, which is why things like digital art are becoming so popular, because there are no restrictions anymore. People are free to create whatever they choose, using any kind of tool that they have available, and that’s amazing.
What we are now seeing is people creating digital art from every corner of the world, putting it online, and then selling it either as a single piece or as an NFT. There are competitions popping up everywhere, and these competitions are having such a big impact on spreading the potential of digital art, pushing that envelope out into the world.
We truly are witness to a digital renaissance when it comes to art, and this is fantastic. There is no limit to what can be achieved with digital art, and it is simply a case of experimenting further, figuring out what combinations of things can be used together, and then using these brand-new resources to generate something new and amazing.
Anybody can start with digital art, and that’s fantastic. There are no limits, there’s no restrictions on how you create, because art is in the eye of the beholder. You could sit down at a computer today and create a digital art piece by tomorrow. That is art in the truest sense of the word, so it’s not exactly surprising that a digital art revolution is happening before our very eyes and it should be embraced in every way.
This is a guest post by Bitcoin Bible. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
