A Trip Into The Digital Art World

How I stumbled into a 6 figure digital art portfolio.

By: Michael J. Maio

About 2 weeks ago I decided to take my first deep dive into the NFT world. What I found at the entrance is what I consider, a technological barrier of entry. What seemed like a puzzle, was merely just the first step into the Ethereum NFT shop.

After I finally synced my CoinBase Wallet to OpenSea, the process of buying items felt straight forward. Moving forward I bought a couple art pieces and the experience began to feel a lot like trading physical collectibles in an online store. On my 3rd purchase, unbeknownst to me, I entered the meta-verse. The meta-verse!? Ya, the meta-verse. 2 days, and likely 2 worthless NFTs later I stumbled upon a new project called the “Gambling Apes” 7,777 unique degenerate gambling apes, who exist only in a virtual casino in “The Meta-verse” a virtual world built on “Decentra-Land”. For those new to Meta-verses this may all seem a bit outside the box, but for individuals who dabbled in the “World of Warcraft” and most recently became “Architects” on “Fortnite” this concept feels like common place.

While my Gambling Ape is valuable, it’s value pales in comparison to similar projects that have come before it, i.e.; The Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. Just reference this article ( https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22664469/bored-ape-yacht-club-sothebys-auction-amount ) and you’ll understand, this ain’t no monkey business.

So what possesses a sane person to buy a $250,000 digital monkey? Well you see it’s more then just a monkey…You remember that 2Pac Hologram at Coachella? Well, from that day forward humans realized that they were not only allowed to visit virtual worlds through a screen, but now we had the ability to bring features of our virtual world to our real one (Unless that was really 2pac).

Now, this may all seem like a lot, and believe me I’m with you, but bare with me a second. Taking the points I just shared, let’s see if we can put this together. Meta-verses + Premium Rare Digital Monkeys + Celebrity Owners = Some serious speculation… Now in order to figure out if this speculation is warranted you take all the passive income these Characters will earn from royalties from being in Video Games, other digital content, and virtual experiences, then you divide that by the risk that the concept of the “Meta-verse” is complete nonsense or decades before it’s time, and then finally you tally all that up, AAAAAnd you …… shove it up your butt….

Jokes people, jokes… Anyways I digress, what I’m implying by that ridiculous statement is it’s impossible to value something in the Meta-verse because IT DOES NOT EXIST YET, at least not in the capacity that we could hop into our digital monkey and traverse into the next dimension w/o “lag”.

After buying and owning my digital monkey for a day or so, I came across an artist on the front page of OpenSea named Harry Pack. I immediately fell in love with his work and a few others and down the rabbit hole… Noa Knafo, Saviz, Arya Malurama, Dario De Siena to name a few… & then it clicked… This was the now…this was the next wave, my next speculation, investing in digital respresentations of art and culture…Unique images guided by smart contracts with assigned royalties that in my view, will revolutionize the way we consume art and media.

After buying and selling my first few pieces I realized the fundamental problem with the NFT market, and simply put, it’s a lack of efficient liquidity. Too many misguided buyers with little understanding of the art their purchasing or the artists behind them, but with only about 200,000 members, and $1.5 billion in monthly trading volume on opensea , it’s really no surprise to me. My time in the NFT space has been short and sweet, and enough to convince me that this is the next life changing opportunity in financial markets. My advice to myself is to stay above the surface as much as I can...It's easy to get lost surfing the OpenSea.

All in all the big thing I took from this whole experience is…

Sometimes it pays to be a little bit curious.

P.S. A message from Harry Pack - HarryPackArt.

“It’s Ok to Be A Little Weird.”