Kepeng.io, DENPASAR – In March 2021, the NFT world was shocked by the successful sale of Beeple’s work “Every day’s: The First 5,000 Days” which was sold at Christie’s for $69.3 million. This trend of NFT in art has attracted the attention of artists who are members of the Yayasan Seni Nara Iswara, Denpasar City.
Seeing this, the Yayasan Seni Nara Iswara collaborated with Kepeng.io in order to make Kepeng.io’s latest project a success with the Bekraf (Badan Ekonomi Kreatif) of Denpasar City, namely Baliola.com. The signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was carried out by I Gede Suweca, S.Sn., M.Pd. as Chairman of the Yayasan Seni Nara Iswara with I Putu Gede Rahman Desyanta as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kepeng Indonesia (Kepeng.io).
Before signing Mou, Desyanta gave brief socialization about NFT and Baliola.com. The socialization which was held in the Discussion Room of the Dharma Negara Alaya (DNA) Building Denpasar on Friday (27/8/2021), introduced the use of NFT (Non-Fungible Token), namely, a digital marketplace basis. Baliola.com is the first NFT Art Marketplace in Bali. A non-Fungible Token (NFT) is a token that cannot be exchanged, has a unique value that is certainly different from one another. NFT is also a blockchain-based token that securely maps ownership rights to digital assets.
Recently, digital works ownership assets such as photos, videos, or other virtual works have been widely sold in the form of NFT. Digital assets sold in the form of NFT will have a “digital certificate” that signifies the authenticity of the asset even though there are many copies circulating in cyberspace. “The analogy is like this, by having physical artwork (which museum visitors can also see without owning it), NFTs provides a way to represent ownership or ownership of digital assets such as art, music, games or collections,” said Desyanta.
Works sold in the form of NFT will be recorded on the blockchain. Blockchain is a kind of digital “ledger” similar to the network that supports Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies. Blockchain technology represents a secure and transparent basis for mapping and value transfer (peer-to-peer) over the Internet. Specifically, blockchain is used to store metadata representing ownership or other rights to an asset.
This blockchain technology will later maintain the security of the artist’s data who owns the NFT artwork. The blockchain system is decentralized, and any incoming transactions cannot be changed or deleted. Then, regarding the NFT of the artwork, the artist creates a single NFT token that reflects the rights to the digital art asset. Just as physical art can be viewed in a museum without owning it, internet users can also view the artwork. However, there is only one owner.
Desyanta gave an example from concert tickets, trading cards, or liquidity allocation on the Uniswap decentralized exchange. Trading cards can exist multiple times, but not “the exact same one”. NFTs for concert tickets are distinguished by characteristics such as seats or simple barcode IDs. In the example of the Uniswap decentralized exchange, the NFT represents the rights to the allocated capital. While two parties can of course provide the exact same amount of capital, they still represent independent rights or positions.
NFTs can provide digital equivalents for unique or rare assets in the analog world. The programmability of NFT allows its properties to be customized. For example, this could mean that the creator automatically receives royalties from the resale. NFTs can be traded in fractions or used as collateral, or new NFT projects can complement existing ones. A prominent example of this is the KittyKats project, which allows CryptoKitties NFT (i.e. digital cats) to be expanded with hats, clothing, and accessories. With the implementation of smart contracts, standards have been developed to offer ready-to-use NFT.
Seeing the advantages of this NFT system, the Nara Iswara Art Foundation strongly supports the government’s creative movement. As is known, Kepeng.io is collaborating with Bekraf Denpasar City to run the Baliola marketplace project. “With this NFT (Kepeng.io), we support it as much as possible. Hopefully, from our member who designs the artwork, he is confused about where to sell it, why doesn’t he sell it on the NFT Kepeng.io media like Baliola. In the future, we really have to think towards digitization, the offline market becomes an online market, why don’t we support it,” said Sueca.
The NFT market is a very young phenomenon, which in turn has emerged from the same recent technological phenomenon. Even though it is said to be new, the income obtained from selling NFT in several existing marketplaces can be said to be large. Collectors who like works of art, especially unique and rare works of art that reflect certain arts (culture, customs, and traditions) can attract their interest in buying these works. Therefore, Balinese artists do not need to worry about marketing their work in the current era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through Baliola.com, Kepeng.io provides a platform for artists to showcase, and the target market is the international market.
(banyuning)
