A museum dedicated to NFTs, the digital pieces that are all the rage in the art market, has opened its doors in the United States.
The Seattle NFT Museum brings original artwork as well as explanations of the technology used to bring non-fungible tokens to life, seeking to help visitors understand this new universe.
“The point of having a physical space is to make it easy for everyone to understand,” explained the museum’s co-founder, Peter Hamilton.
“It doesn’t matter how much you know or don’t know about digital art or NFTs, because you can walk around the museum and you can see the art pieces in a larger format, more like exhibits in a museum.”
NFTs are one-of-a-kind virtual pieces, whose owner gains ownership despite not being something tangible.
Its content can be copied, but the NFT is “the original”, in the same way that there are countless copies of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in the world, but only the Louvre museum has the original painting.
Investors and wealthy collectors have been diving headfirst into this digital mania in recent months, which is powered by the same blockchain technology that underpins digital currencies.
In recent auctions, NFTs have raked in millions, including $69.3 million offered for a digital work by artist Beeple at a Christie’s auction.
Like all new technologies, there are people who question these pieces. Some even dismiss them as just a fad.
But museum visitors say they see these pieces as the real thing.
“It’s like a global phenomenon, we are seeing it being born,” said a woman visiting the museum.
Seeing this evolution is part of the fun for Hamilton.
“It’s hard to say where we’re going with this technology, this is just the beginning,” he said.
“Whoever tells you that he is an NFT expert is lying because we are all learning, it is a new experience, we are all living this beginning,” he added.