Non-fungible tokens and digital art: game-changers for Asian collectors or just another bubble?

In a post revealing his identity in the online newsletter Substack, Vignesh explained that the typical "palette" of investors, financiers and patrons of arts tended to be "monochrome". By winning the landmark artwork, he was adding a "dash of mahogany".

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

"The point was to show Indians and people of colour that they too could be patrons, that cryptocurrency was an equalising power between the West and the Rest, and that the global south was rising," Vignesh said.

So what exactly is an NFT, why the buzz and is their rise the start of a new wave of art investment?

Just like the original painting of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is more valuable than copies or duplicates, NFTs are virtual assets that (thanks to the blockchain) are also distinguishable from copies or duplicates. This concept has led to individuals being able to sell digital artworks and other collectibles and trade them as assets, safe in the knowledge they are selling or buying an original piece.

NFTs have come to the fore in recent months as artists around the world have made millions by auctioning pieces of work as non-fungible tokens.

Lawrence Loh, an associate professor of business at the National University of Singapore, agreed with Vignesh that the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies could tilt the balance of power between institutions and individuals.

He cited how fiat - or normal - currencies are controlled by a central bank or an authority that issues the money, which means that its value is dependent on the institution.

Conversely, in cryptocurrency, because of the "intrinsic nature" of its blockchain technology, and how it is peer-to-peer distributed, there is no central authority. The same is true of NFTs, which use the same technology.

"Traditional financial institutions are usually from the West while many wealthy individuals are now from Asia," said Loh.

"There is a thinking that the NFTs may empower these individuals to be less dependent on the institutions, thus equalising the power between the West and the rest."

He suggested that NFTs could expand the range of assets available to Asian buyers. Loh said that while Asians were perhaps less appreciative than Westerners of traditional forms of art, "digital art might be something new for them to look into".

Herman Salleh, director of H.arts Collective, an art advisory and management firm, said most of his art patrons were Westerners, possibly because they were more "culturally inclined" to collect traditional pieces.

"But [the number of] Asian collectors is growing ... you would be surprised," he said.

Businesspeople were also buying virtual art for the "thrill" of it, he said, adding that in the case of Vignesh - - the purchase was to feed some form of self-validation of his foray into cryptocurrencies.

Similarly, Bowie Lau, founder of angel investment firm MaGEHold, which has investments in the blockchain sector, said that with Asia's fast pace of wealth growth, interest and participation in new tech innovations NFTs would increasingly be dominated by Asian buyers.

"Further, the familial culture often motivates Asians to accumulate wealth for posterity and unique and exquisite artworks are great pieces of wealth that could be handed down from one generation to another," she added.

Lau said NFTs had allowed a "new liberalisation of art" that was not previously possible with physical art ownership.

She pointed out that physical art was mostly about possession by the owner; pieces were often kept away from public view or occasionally displayed in art museums. NFTs on the other hand were publicly verifiable and were "freely viewable and downloadable by anyone".

"The underlying powerful libertarian concept is that art should be free for all to view and enjoy but the bragging rights of ownership can still be exercised by whoever owns the NFT associated with that art," she said. "NFTs have become a more convenient asset for people to invest in and be able to sell conveniently at prices discovered transparently in marketplaces."

Already, artists and art galleries in Asia are pinning their hopes on NFTs being the next big thing. Marc Yap, a 25-year-old arts undergraduate in Singapore, said the recent NFT trend was the "way of the future", pointing to how there was always a demand for digital art.

Yap, a traditional artist initially, felt artists in the region could benefit from the trend as a new channel of passive income. Vignesh also hinted at this in an interview with Singapore media, saying: "Artists should use this situation and understand that this shift is for them."

Even so, Troy Sadler, managing director of Singapore-based art gallery Art Works, felt digital art could never replace traditional mediums like oil on canvas and sculpture, in the same way electronic music could never replace guitars.

"This is a platform to create copies of digital art and attach them to a non-obvious certificate of originality," he said, adding the market was fuelled by speculation and hype.

"If people want to pay for these digital objects, let them do it but let's not pretend that this serves any social goals."

David Lee, a finance professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences' Business School, said this was just the beginning of an experimentation with digital arts, tweets and videos.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2021. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.