NFT beyond the hype

Transcript

[Music] thank you very picky can I start okay thank you so much for attending my talk I'm really excited to share research which is very very close to my heart it's called nft beyond the hype how talking economy impacts creative entrepreneurship my name is abna this image here is one of the most expensive board day sold for US dollar 3.4 million in October 2021

this when I saw this image I was like wow I mean so many thoughts went to my mind starting with who creates something like this what motivates people what's the process of doing an image like this and who is buying actually an nft the curious person as I am I always want to have more meanings towards something that I see on social media that's why I derived my inspiration of doing the research and it was part of my second master that just completed now this um this is why I was always fascinated by this technology blockchain nft um Etc and I was I was dedicating my time in doing in-depth research on this

new phenomenon the area of my research focused mainly on token economy because blockchain itself is very broad there's a lot of niches but I've really purely focused on token economy and the answer that I'm trying to answer is how does it impact this new phenomena how does it impact creative entrepreneurship the other question to ask myself I mean research is worth motivation is one aspect but is my research even important I can answer yes because it links it's at the intersection of Technology create economy and Society it also links the value that nft enables for more purely creative entrepreneurship level and there's no rush research about it

the research that I found focus more on the technical aspect of nfts but not really the value that it generates from a human perspective and the focus of purely creative perspective so I'm not interested in investors or nft enthusiasts only those who classify themselves as nft creators it could be individuals up above 18 years old irrespective of the nft section uh genre that they're active on well but first I start with my research I asked myself how does the nft ecosystem look like I mean it is it can be summarized as a two-sided Marketplace those who are buying nfts uh can be

classified as fan I consider myself as a fan I have high emotional connection to all of my nfts I rarely sell any of them and then we have those flippers means flipping jpegs left and right and their motivation being engaged in the ecosystem is purely monetary driven on the other side is the focus of my research are those who are creating nfts it could be game designers painters music producers artists photographers etc those were actually creating doing value a creative value expression and the reason why I'm doing this because much of the media is only portraying those who are buying it but there's less focus on those who are

creating and that's why I want to put this into my focus of my research I give them a voice those are actually creating nfts um first I started doing literature review creative economy is not a New Concept has existed since many years many decades and it's characteristic by human creativity technology and ideas and at the moment creative economies are undergoing a massive digital transformation in the form of AI virtual reality and blockchain Technology the second aspect of my research to review is focused on the technical aspect of nft schema start with the blockchain technology technical

application smart contract on top of it without them nft will not exist token economy and basically anything of value can be tokenized such as art Commodities currencies um collectives Etc and asset token is a niche of token economy that represents possession of value and nft is an application of an asset token how I mean redoing research can be very um tedious daunting tasks but how are answer my research question is basically are you decided doing a qualitative inductive approach qualitative it's

pursuitable because it um it's the best way to get insights of a new phenomenon and inductive is also best suitable to get emotions and feelings of participants and also qualitative because I do not have like the sample size is not 20 20 000 people that I have interviewed so that's why qualitative is more suitable for my answer my research question I started doing interviews last August as part of my thesis which I've already submitted but as I mentioned before I really love this topic so I'm doing on a voluntary basis and I'm even thinking of doing a PhD later on this topic

um Upton I have interviewed like more than 20 plus creators from all over the world roughly interview recorded materials like an hour that's that's roughly like 20 pages of content material that I have clustered and find themes to it I have not used EI AI to in doing the categories and it was a form of Storytelling what does it mean I just listened to them I had the questions with me but I have not submitted any of the questions to any participant before the reason why I didn't do this because I've proven that when participants don't know what I'm asking there's free speak more freely more open they share more insights than just rather stick into the questions I

really was fascinated for all the interviews I always thought that oh I've done so many interviews I don't get any New Perspective but each participant has opened up a show me a deep look this whole Reasons from a different angle pointed up into a different direction it was really interesting to just listen to them without being judgment without um I just give them a voice and I was just observing and listening to their stories some of them I had to nudge them back into the direction because they were talking from A to B to Z it was interesting but wasn't really under my research question and other top conversations was highly philosophical I think we could have go down and talked like for three four hours very very

enriching very um inspiring listening to their stories and I was very um pleased that they trusted me to be open and share also unpleasant experiences and memories and some of them I even have contact with them established form of race friendship now okay now um I talked about like the why how and um what motivated me here comes the most interesting aspect the findings this image visualizes the Creator's life and the different parts that are interconnected to each other starting

with the purpose actors space time and procedure these are the categories that I have derived from going to the interview material by coding coding doesn't mean like a python coding coding means associating a category to a team and clustering and so um so that I can interpret the interview material purpose could be anything that triggers them in doing an nft it could be purely monetary driven they wanted to have a new income stream or they want to make fast money it could also be like artistic creative expression they were interested because it enables them to express the idea in a different way than

before also some are fascinated by the technology itself that's why they become nft creators procedure is related to anything that impacts the creative process I have to mention to all of the participants have been creators before so they were musicians they were painters they were creative street art um um painter so all have been artists before and I just want to figure out how Disney phenomenon impacts their creative process expression also how does impact the selling of their artwork space is anything related to the different spaces that there the creators

are in it could be economic space in the form of if which nft platform like openc a variable blur Etc impacts their monetization of the artwork infrastructure space is related to how does the technology influence their creative creativity do they have more does it hinder them does it limit them does it open up a ways in in be more creative also with with other creators itself time is related to anything when they became many two creators how often they sell the artwork how often they do community engagement and what the frequency Etc

findings number one it's a the research has been shown that the collective economy the new phenomenon phenomenon Democrat democratized content generation it also increased um that the participant can if efficiently sell their monetize their artwork because there's no middleman they are not dependent on galleries they're not really dependent on um record label they can have more control and ownership of their artwork and things none of them really wants to miss it and I thought that maybe after pandemic things will change but even now after the first hype of nft wave people

all of them are still sticking to this Revenue model because it gives them a freedom um they couldn't have imagined envisioned before the second one the findings is a paradigma shift in artistic value creation what does it mean it enables a new Revenue models and also paradigma shift in art culture and Society like creativity overall and that I think the most important aspect is it empowers underrepresented artists all of a sudden they are like part of like at the big table they can also sell their artwork without relying too much on a gallery physical Gallery in Basel or Miami New York which

is vouching for the artwork so they have more a vector and Tool in participating um in an economy which they have been left out before it also has a great impact on the creation process because I mean the nfcs opens up unlimited possibilities for creators you can combine audio visual elements and creating artwork which didn't really exist in that form it also enables a more diverse artwork because they because the creativity has been opened up and has expanded and which is why the artwork is more diverse and accessible overall another Finding is definitely Community

engagement create it enables creators in creating a unique experience in digital offerings it also increased transparency on the sale of proceeds where there's a fine um the revenue has been can be put into it like funding other artists or um investing in other projects for public goods it does enables accessibility of art for everyone another finding that I was really interested that I can definitely confirm is that the challenges of creating non-fungible tokenization in those creators who are Tech novice had struggled in even setting up a wallet

minting their nfts and it is highly correlated the more Tech experts they are the less challenging it was and also we have to consider that Disney phenomenon is it's fairly new the documentation is not very good so if you're really Tech novice you really struggle in finding your food there it's not only creating artwork but also making sure that the artwork is sold and you don't false um you're not subject to scammers and also another interesting aspect is it really has a change of creators life what does it mean before we were just creating art and someone was selling the artwork someone was making sure that your art is reaching the fan base now as a Creator you need to do this lack of

work as well and those creators who are highly on the introvert spectrum they find it very challenging to interact with the people they were never exposed before and also um yeah it was challenging they have embraced it they find a way to engage with their fan base in their own way but it has definitely had an impact on on their um Creator's life overall because decentralization also comes with accountability and that means you need to take ownership of selling you artwork the key findings is nft is an extension or Evolution it's not a revolution because digital art existed before

but it enables its ownership and also enables access to utility and I think the utility is gives a thriving economy in utilities it's a new phenomenon that have not been really explored it's something that will evolve over time I mean it will be really interesting to see doing research in two or three years time to see the findings that I have now how has this changed and how it has evolved the whole ecosystem I mean I'm doing this research on ongoing basis if you know anyone any nft creators let me let me know I'm looking for more people who party want to participate to expand This research to get more insights into it especially more female creators I'm lacking at the

moment and yeah here's our contact details to let's stay in touch and thanks for attending my talk I hope you enjoyed thank you very much for this uh um I am seeing your presentation the difference between artist and the Creator and before it I was totally sure that the artist and the Creator is the same and because of your presentation now I understand artists and the Creator it can be two totally different people and the artist can be artificial intelligence and the Creator can be not so and this is my question to you how

this research affect you after speaking with so many different creators do you want to become a Creator too you was telling that you are just fan but after this research do you maybe you also want to become a creator thank you for the interesting question um I don't know if I want to be a Creator but the only thing I can say is that I value nft in for a much different way because I see the work that is behind it and also see a craftmanship and and and and it's it's it's um yeah it's a craft much of a dedication it's something that social media is not transporting this um the feelings and motion behind it so I

really appreciate all the creators um from a completely different level I even admired it before but now it's a deep form of gratitude and appreciation because they create things that is also for public good and something that should be viewed um yeah more appreciated but I don't know if I want to be a Creator I prefer doing research thank you very much if somebody else who have a card so we don't have any more time for the next question but you can ask the speaker after thank you very much [Music] [Music]

[Applause] [Music]