Potential Advantages and Disadvantages of NFT-Applied Digital Art

Sammanfattning: Fraudulent behaviour within the art sector has been around since the Roman empire. The difficulty of proving provenance and authenticity has led to various art scandals around the world. The use of NFTs with their underlying blockchain technology has been described as a solution to these problems when applied to artworks. The recent public interest for NFT- applied to digital art and its perceived functionality is the motivation to investigate the usage of NFT digital art. Therefore, this study discusses the potential advantages and disadvantages of NFT-applied digital art. The results are based on (i) a literature analysis of previously identified advantages and disadvantages, (ii) the use of Practice Theory to investigate underlying motives to engage in the practice and (iii) an empirical review of nine respondents involved with NFTs applied to digital art. Potential advantages a majority of the respondents supported were the following: The advantage of royalty sharing, versatile utilization, provenance and exposure to larger markets. Potential disadvantages a majority of the respondents supported were the following: The disadvantage of the false belief of provenance, fraudulent behaviour, environmental aspects, legal aspects and that NFTs are currently not blockchain agnostic. The underlying motives the respondents expressed were financially driven and curiosity about the technology. The contribution of this paper will be useful for potential NFT-stakeholders to assess whether it is worth engaging in the area based on its current potential advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, by highlighting the technology’s potential disadvantages, the paper also describes potential improvement factors which the NFT-community would benefit from resolving.