DADA to host first digital art marketplace using blockchain

Collaborative platform for artists, DADA.nyc, announces today the launch of the first digital art marketplace using blockchain technology.

This Halloween will see the launch of the marketplace’s first digital collection titled “Creeps & Weirdos”, which will feature 100 unusual, Halloween-themed, limited-edition drawings made by artists from around the world.

The collection will only be available to purchase with Ethereum cryptocurrency and each work will be assigned to one of five levels of scarcity, ranging from common to extremely rare drawings.

The launch will kick off on October 31 with a party in New York City. 

The ability to purchase an original piece of digital artwork with Ethereum cryptocurrency might seem like a gimmick at first, but the technological evolution is groundbreaking for the digital art world. Until now, digital art has been valued differently from regular old fashioned “physical” art in that it was impossible to defend authenticity and fully credit artists.

An original copy of the Mona Lisa, for instance, is worth a couple of billion dollars, but the fake copies you might be able to pick up in a museum gift shop are not worth anywhere near as much. The issue for the digital art world has been (to continue the analogy) that every copy of the Mona Lisa is valued the same regardless of originality. Blockchain hopes to change all that and apply the principles that have guided the valuation of physical art to the digital art world.  

Before blockchain, it was almost impossible for a digital art buyer to be certain of purchasing an authentic piece of art and for the artists to be properly compensated for their original artwork.   

Blockchain and its complex technology have made it possible for artists and buyers alike to claim ownership, authenticity and verify that the digital artwork they possess is original and legit. Blockchain is able to achieve that simply by issuing IP certificates and proof of ownership across a decentralized, secure and consistent network.

Although users can still take screenshots of digital art sold through blockchain, DADA Founder Beatriz Ramos explained that the value remains with the unique token and that “taking screenshots will be like making a photocopy of a dollar bill”.  

The technology of blockchain goes hand-in-hand with cryptocurrencies. In fact, when blockchain was first created, it was done with the purpose of making cryptocurrency transactions more secure. The reason being that cryptocurrencies had the same problem with counter fitting and devaluation as digital art, which forced them to develop a technology that would keep a ledger and secure authenticity of transactions and original value.

Since then blockchain has revolutionized a wide range of digital industries with artwork only being one of them.  

When DADA launches the Creeps & Weirdos collection this Halloween, it should serve as a new landmark for digital artwork as a whole. Some of the featured artists are Boriz Z. Simunich, Carlos Marquez and Beatriz Ramos, who have been active users of the DADA platform and have highly impressed with some of their previous art pieces.

You can take a sneak preview of some of the art pieces on DADA’s Twitter page and of course, all the artwork displayed in this article are part of the Creeps & Weirdos collection.