Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a new type of digital asset that can be used as collectibles. They are essentially similar to digital assets, with provable scarcity built-in.
One of the first famous use-cases for NFTs was CryptoKitties, which allowed users to buy, sell, and trade digital kittens. Today, there are hundreds of different projects using NFTs to build more complex applications. For example: Next Earth allows you to buy and sell digital replicas of land on a blockchain copy of Earth.
NFT Pixel Art
Next Earth is also building a metaverse pixel art builder so that anyone can easily start creating their own scenes and art on a digital replica of our own world.
You don’t need any programming experience—or even a specialized 3D modeling tool—to start designing spaces right inside the builder. Pixel art on the blockchain is an entirely new NFT use-case, that’s now seeing its very first creations.
What is pixel art?
We’ve all seen pixel art before. It’s that retro 8-bit style of graphics that we grew up with on old video games, computers, and televisions. While it’s become a bit passé in recent years, the pixel art aesthetic is still widely used today. So why not use these classic pixels to make virtual art?
What are some applications for metaverse land art?
This new digital asset, of pixel art on the blockchain, will enable many exciting new applications across industries ranging from gaming, film, real estate development, finance, fine art trading, and much more. Here are just a few examples:
- Real estate developers could introduce NFT properties
- Film studios could develop virtual sets for movie productions
- Artists could sell limited edition prints of their artwork
- Investors could invest in unique artwork created by talented individuals around the world
- Collectors could buy limited edition works of art created by famous artists
While regular NFTs are often programmatically generated, such as variations of breeded CryptoKitties, land art NFTs have an inherent artistic and creative element to them. This means that each piece of land art is unique and no two pieces are alike.
One application that’s particularly exciting is using these NFTs to support environmental causes. For example, a developer could create a digital replica of the Great Barrier Reef for virtual tourism or another developer could create an art piece around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the proceeds of which could go to charity.
With colored pixels, one could even visually represent different types of plastic pollution such as microplastics or larger pieces of debris like bottles and bags. These could be used to raise awareness around various issues including beach cleanups or even donating money directly to charities.
When it comes to environmental charities, the possibilities with metaverse land art are endless.
What does this mean for the art world?
For starters, it means that there will be a market for these virtual artworks. With the introduction of NFTs, we’ve seen how valuable digital content can be. People are willing to pay top dollar for exclusive digital content because they know it’s provably scarce. It’s only logical to assume that the same scarcity principle would apply to Earth-based pixel artworks too.
Most importantly, these Earth-based pixel artworks are tokenized as non-fungible assets on the blockchain (land art NFTs). This makes them provably scarce, one-of-a-kind pieces of digital art.
In addition, since each piece of land is owned by its creator, this new asset class gives artists more control over their work and how it is presented. Also, since each piece of virtual artwork is owned by its creator, no one else can modify or remove the artwork from the scene without the permission of that owner.
Ultimately, the crypto space moves incredibly fast, and finding these opportunities early is rare. For those who’ve stumbled upon this new type of NFT use-case, they’ve found a red-hot opportunity as early as it gets.
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