“If you don’t have NFTs [non-fungible tokens], you don’t exist” has been a hotly debated idea among experts and creators in the last year. With a market valuation at US$41 billion in 2021 according to Bloomberg, (the world of) NFT is a new elephant that is too big to ignore.

By all means, NFT is a hodgepodge of haven, trouble and opportunities: to make a quick fortune; to steal, cheat and escape; to make the world a better place. Is NFT all about doom and gloom?  Can it enable positive change for artists, and if so, how?

Given the relative infancy of NFT, we have very little knowledge about what NFT affords to the world and in particular how they impact their first intended users: artists -- ordinary artists, to be specific. Artists often face hurdles on their paths and are disadvantaged by the “desk-reject culture” of gatekeepers.

Getting their first work sold is a top challenge. Being new, small, unknown or dubbed as “lacking legitimacy” is one issue, but at a deeper level there exist various types of discrimination -- gender, ethnicity, country of origin, age, to name a few -- that take away artists’ power to negotiate.

Not only is there a relatively unfair split of commission fees going to middlemen like galleries and centralized platforms, but also artists are merely rewarded with primary market sales. Why can’t artists receive as income a percentage of the sale each time their art is resold?

Artists also wonder why they can’t be compensated more fairly -- right now, while they are alive -- to enable them to make better artworks. Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest artworks -- those that made Europe famous -- were only possible thanks to funds that commissioned his works. NFT hence becomes artists’ savior, tackling their problems in several ways.

First, NFT exists in a global marketplace where artists (and all creators) can make an entry without being “desk rejected” for unfair or unscrupulous reasons. NFT gives every artist an equal opportunity to get listed in the markets (e.g., OpenSea, Objkt), which are akin to Amazon.com – except that an NFT artist owns most (e.g., 90 percent or more) of the income from a sale after deducting small “gas fees.” NFT markets boost the chance for artists and artworks of any types, styles and tastes to get discovered and sold. Since NFT clusters a large variety of collectors, investors and buyers, it enables “efficient matching” which inaugurates the first sale, subsequent learning benefits and reputation gain.

Second, NFT safeguards transactions by giving economic autonomy to artists. The smart contract supporting each NFT enables artists to determine the price of their art in primary and secondary markets. Artists can set the amount of royalty -- usually in percent terms of the secondary market sale -- that will be transferred to their account automatically, with an absence of middlemen. In the case of the artist’s death, the royalty income can still be enjoyed by the artist’s families if the password is kept safely.

Third, NFT lives in community. Not only is there a culture of helping each other in problem-solving -- from how to mint an artwork to how to deal with thieves -- but also, artists often help each other out by collecting other artists' work. These help new, unknown, stigmatized artists gain some confidence, learn about NFT and rethink how to make better artworks.     

Certainly, the success of NFT is not an utterly random process, but is often driven by originality, being the pioneer and doing high-quality work.

Prior to NFT days, Visithra Manikam, also known as VIS, a self-taught Malaysian NFT artist, could not get a foot (“desk rejected”) inside galleries in her country for years. She was relying on a full-time non-art related job to finance her passion for ethnic art, until the 2021 pandemic, when she lost her job and jumped into the “NFT rabbit hole”.

Ever since then, she became one of the most successful NFT artists from ASEAN and has been invited to exhibit in the United Kingdom, the United States and India. Having sold hundreds of ethnically nuanced NFT arts, VIS can finally explore her artistic passion freely, while collecting other struggling artists’ first NFTs.

Noe Alonzo, a photographer based in Seoul, also faced “desk rejection” and failed to exhibit in galleries in South Korea for many years. He saw NFT as an escape and is now very successful with his “animated photos” of cityscapes, his works highly collected internationally -- in four continents.

There are other non-typical NFT artists who shot to fame: Fewocious, a young transgender NFT artist who is a migrant in the US and who has become one of the highest-selling young NFT artists. Nyla Hayes (an African American) and Laya Mathikshara (an Indian), both adolescent (12 - 14 years old) artists, offer original artworks.  It is hard to imagine a 12-year-old passing the “desk review” required to exhibit in galleries. But NFT changes that once and for all.

In Indonesia, the creative class has joined NFT too. Examples include Addien Fachruroji, who rose in fame internationally for his promise to feed a kilogram of food to stray cats for each of his NFTs sold. The almost unheard-of illustrator WD Willy became a global sensation after launching Karafuru NFT, in collaboration with Museum of Toys and Urban Sneaker Society, which has been rated as the most expensive NFT from Indonesia -- at 3 ETH its floor price -- and is in demand by international collectors.

There are also other ambitious NFT projects such as Superlative Secret Society.  Bringing the digital to the physical, it will put Bali in the spotlight on the global art market. The “Ghozali Everyday” appears to be a truly lucky phenomenon, but it also shows the virtue of being the first in the NFT space.

Web3 and NFT in particular -- while still imperfect as a technology, and lacking needed policies and societal support -- will continue to liberate artists in ways we have never seen before. Not all artists will jump into the NFT rabbit hole, nor will all be successful -- some do NFT on a part-time basis to hedge against uncertainty, while others have gone “all out” or even get funding to launch “projects” (or companies) -- but it is certainly a new avenue, a parallel universe to success.

With advancements in blockchain technologies to support NFTs, and NFTs becoming increasingly affordable to create and mint, it is not difficult to imagine that in the years to come, every valuable object in the physical world will have its “virtual twin” in the form of an NFT.

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The writer is an associate professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Applied Social Sciences. The opinion expressed is his own.