[imagesource: Pablo Picasso / Sotheby’s]

Artists across the globe have been making absolute bank on the sale of their art as NFTs.

An NFT, or a non-fungible token, provides a method of authentication for a piece of digital content, based on blockchain technology. It certifies and tracks the ownership of a unique digital asset.

Sales include Nyan Cat that sold as an NFT for $590 000 (around R8,3 million), and Beeple’s digital collage sold for almost $70 million.

The list goes on…

But there are also concerns that the NFT bubble is bursting, with sales and interest plummeting rapidly.

Sotheby’s, the world’s largest marketplace for art and luxury, is using an NFT in a really different way than what we’re used to – digitally “securing” a painting.

That is a real, physical painting by Pablo Picasso entitled “Le peintre et son modèle” above, which is being auctioned off along with a custom-made NFT that resides on the Ethereum blockchain, reports The Painting Daily.

The NFT will work in a rather unique way:

The NFT was created with a looking glass scanner from the startup Mira Imaging. It uses a microscope, AI, and robotics to scan “every micrometre” of the painting’s surface to create a “unique encrypted signature,” says Sotheby’s.

The NFT can then be used to confirm the authenticity of the painting  (if you have the mirror scanner on hand). Sotheby’s claims that the object can be scanned in minutes and that the process is no more invasive than taking a picture. Then the physical object can be re-identified with a very low probability of error – one of “many” billions, says Sotheby’s.

Is this the future of NFTs? Honestly, who really knows?

The online world is a strange and foreign land, and moves at such a quick pace that we mere mortals find it hard to keep up.

Sometimes all I can manage is to watch on, mouth agape.

[source:thepaintingdaily]