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Web3 art curation platform analysis report: model, market performance, development analysis

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Curating should not only promote or sell NFT, but also need to pay more attention to the scenes behind the works and the establishment of cultural connections.

Original title: "Analysis Report on Top Web3 Art Curating Platforms"

Original Author: Snap Finger Builder Discord@memeswap#8864 (Twitter@Varian8848)

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Last year, the global art market had a transaction volume of about 65 billion U.S. dollars, and this did not include NFT. In 2021, Art Blocks, the Web3 art NFT curation platform, was established, and its sales exceeded 1 billion US dollars in the same year. As NFT gradually entered the public eye, more and more collectors and investment institutions began to pay attention to the NFT investment field, including MUSE0 DAO , Flamingo DAO, Curated Fund and other professional investment institutions. At the same time, more and more top artists and top curatorial incubation teams have joined this track.

So, what is curation? In the field of NFT, creating a collection for selling NFT on Opensea is the simplest curation. The founder of Zora believes that curation is the act of creating context, and curation should not just be To promote or sell NFT, it is more necessary to pay attention to the scene behind the work and the establishment of cultural connections.

For artists, the Web3 art curation/incubation platform can provide them with a full range of support, from technical NFT contracts, royalty design, etc., to From publicity and investor relationship management, the platform can intervene in the stage after the artists complete the art design from different dimensions.

For investors, the art market is mixed with good and bad, and there are a lot of shoddy works and fraudulent products. The Web3 art curation/incubation platform can The industry's long-term experience and information advantages identify excellent works and provide investors with more reliable investment options.

Compared with traditional artwork, NFT artwork can not only ensure the authenticity and source of artwork, but all transaction traces can be traced on the chain, or Protect the resale rights of creators and collectors. Based on the blockchain technology, the art transaction has been transformed from the traditional offline, online auction or private transaction to the form of placing orders for sale, auction, and transfer in the online market, which also improves the liquidity of art. a greater improvement.

Art curation is a resource-intensive track, which requires the team to have sufficient accumulation and deep understanding in the art industry, combined with Web3 technology and concepts Only with unique features can we have the opportunity to establish a solid barrier of competition in Web3 and gain a wider consensus. In 2022, the Web3 art curation track welcomes two more heavyweight players: Outland and Liveart. From Artblocks to Outland and Liveart, these top platforms have their own unique expressions in the understanding of curation.

A brief analysis of the model

Art Blocks Founded by generative artist Erick calderon and others in November 2020, Art Blocks did not attract much attention from the market at the initial stage. After the introduction of the most iconic generative artists Dmitri Cherniak and Tyler Hoobs, along with the trading platform Opensea With its rise and the upsurge of NFT brought about by it, Art Blocks has gradually established its leading position in the generative art NFT track. Chromie Squiggle, Ringers, and Fidenza released by Art Blocks have all triggered a wave of investment in generative art in the NFT world.

Outland The purpose of the Outland platform is to be a platform for continuous output of high-quality artist works, and it is building a major voice in the field of digital art creation, criticism and collection composed of networks. Committed to promoting critical dialogue around emerging digital technologies and their connection to contemporary art, the goal is to provide insightful views on the future-oriented art world, and also provide assistance to outstanding artists in NFT creation.

LiveArt LiveArt is an art platform made up of art market insiders and technology innovators that combines innovative technology with deep knowledge of the art market , putting collectors and artists in control. On the one hand, LiveArtX provides collectors with AI-driven data tools to help them conduct detailed analysis of artists and market trends, enabling them to grasp investment opportunities more objectively and accurately; A complete set of solutions from technology to operation, and finally built an online peer-to-peer collectibles market.

Summary: It can be seen that the focus of the three platforms is very different:

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Art Blocks focuses on the curation of on-chain generated art.

In addition to curating and assisting outstanding artists to issue NFT, Outland pays more attention to art market education and the establishment of discourse power, which is also the essence of art curation;

LiveArt takes advantage of its own advantages. On the one hand, it provides collectors with professional art investment analysis tools and a peer-to-peer trading market. On the other hand, it provides artists with the opportunity to issue NFT Solution, this is a very clever business model design. After depositing a large number of certified traditional collectors on the platform through free tools, and then assisting outstanding artists to complete the curation of NFT, a large number of traditional collectors and artists are based on The same platform has built a closer relationship of trust and a more homogeneous discourse system.

Team

Art Blocks Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon is the earliest CryptoPunks user, holding more than 60 CryptoPunks, he is also one of the few Larva Labs designated CryptoPunks moderators, he is well known in the encryption community for his zombie Punk avatar with rare attributes, and he is also a generative artist.

Outland Platform Founder Jason Li, as a member of the Whitney Museum of American Art (Whitney Museum of American Art) artist council, for the development of all aspects of the museum Provide advice and support, and is also a senior collector of contemporary art and NFT art.

Ms. Xue Mei, Asia Art Director, has more than 15 years of experience in the contemporary art industry. She was the CEO of UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, and led the team to realize the independent operation of UCCA. The experience of serving as the director and general manager of education and institutions at the K11 Art Foundation has also enabled her to accumulate rich experience in cultural exchanges and artist incubation.

LiveArt The three co-founders of LiveArt were born in the world's top auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's and held core positions (including chief operating officer, vice president of business etc.), decades of cultivation and resource accumulation in the art industry have made LiveArt better at using years of industry resources and sophisticated teamwork to demonstrate artistic beauty and commercial value.

Summary:

These excellent teams Endowment and business are well combined:

The founder of Art Blocks is an early user of NFT and has great influence in the NFT circle, and he He also has great enthusiasm for generative art, an art form that can be well combined with the blockchain. This is why he founded Art Blocks, and insists on generating art NFT on the chain, which is an artistic expression method in the context of Web3 The reason for curating the project.

The founders of Outland have museum and art education backgrounds, so they are inclined to user education and the establishment of discourse power, and they are also very good at this work.

The founders of LiveArt were born in top auction houses, and they are also better at matching transactions and investor services, which is a perfect match with the current business model. The performance of the latter two also echoes the previous article: curation is not only about promoting or selling NFTs, but also completes the establishment of the scenes and cultural connections behind the works.

Financing and Institutional Endorsement

Art Blocks Acquired $6 million in financing. TRUE Ventures led the round, with participation from Galaxy Digital’s VC Galaxy Interactive and Collab Currency, among others.

The works curated by Art Blocks have been recognized by investment institutions. In the online gallery of Curated, a $30 million NFT investment fund, you can see Curated Already have a decent collection of Art Blooks generative art, including Chromie Squiggle and Fidenza.

Zhu Su, co-founder of former well-known VC Three Arrows Capital, bought Art Blocks' NFT Ringers #879 for 1,800 ETH (worth about $5.8 million at the time) .

Outland completed a $5 million seed round led by OKG Ventures, with participation from IMO Ventures, Dragon Roark and JDAC Capital.

LiveArt completed more than $4.5 million in financing, led by Animoca Brands, Binance, KuCoin, Alameda Ventures, OKX BlockDream Capital, Gate Labs, HashKey, APENFT Foundation, SNZ, Shima Capital, ArkStream Capital, Head & Shoulder Financials, AppWorks, etc. participated in the investment.

Summary: These three top Web3 art curation incubation platforms have all obtained financing, while LiveArt’s financing amount is relatively small, but it has received The investment of top Web3 investment institutions and top trading platforms, and in the warm-up stage before the release of the first master NFT, has received the support of major top institutions. Combined with the expected currency issuance of this project, it can be felt that it is very different from other projects.

Creation NFT empowerment and market performance

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The project consists of 2022 pieces of digital pottery The holder can obtain the follow-up whitelist rights of the Outland platform. When the number of follow-up projects issued is greater than 2022, users holding Fang Lijun Elemental can automatically obtain the whitelist. If the number of follow-up projects issued is less than 2022, On the other hand, extraction and other methods are used to select users to issue a white list, and the casting price will be lower than other users, which makes Outland's Genesis NFT have a strong golden shovel attribute.

LiveArt Although the Liveart platform has been curating and incubating NFTs, the first truly master-level creation work is the recently launched Master Huang Yuxing's Obsidian Stone Meta-morphic: Seven Treasures, this work is generated through 3D design and encryption algorithm, each obsidian stone NFT is a gemstone floating in multi-dimensional space, with different shapes and connotations.

Huang Yuxing is the most valuable Chinese artist born in the 70s. His work "Seven Treasure Pine Tree" was sold at a sky-high price of HK$64.83 million at Christie's Autumn Auction in 2021, creating the highest price for a Chinese artist born in the 70s Auction records, Huang Yuxing also ranked among the top 3 artists in the Chinese art market in 2021 with a turnover of over 100 million yuan. His works have formed a unique personal style through years of continuous thinking and practice in the art field. The waiting list for Huang Yuxing's new works is very long, and many collectors have been waiting in line for two years.

As LiveArt's first blockbuster artist cooperation series NFT, "Meta-morphic - Yaobian Holders of "The Stone" can enjoy diversified rights and interests, including but not limited to: enjoy series priority rights and interests in Huang Yuxing's other NFT series works in the future, and deeply bind with LiveArt ecological rights and enjoy more empowerment. These empowerments have turned Mr. Huang's NFT into a golden shovel on the LiveArt platform.

"Meta-morphic - Obsidian Stone" has gained a lot of market attention since its announcement, and it was announced and released by many top organizations , and then to the cooperation of several top blue-chip communities, cultural entrepreneur Zheng Zhigang, and top collector Sun Yuchen’s platform, the final performance is that the NFT work was sold out in 1 minute at a price of 1.2 ETH each during the pre-sale stage.

Yaobian Stone is divided into three chapters. Currently, only the pre-sale part of the first chapter has been carried out. The picture has not yet been opened. It should be designed in the same way as Outland in the future. It can continuously expand its influence and attract new holders while ensuring the rights and interests of holders.

In addition, Mr. Huang’s works are highly recognized in both the East and the West. The current project incorporates many works of Huang Yuxing that have not yet been published, and the size is not small , it can be considered that the basic value of NFT is bound to Huang Yuxing's physical works to a certain extent; and considering the multiple rounds of airdrops after the project, including physical prints, although the floor price is hovering around the issue price due to the market environment, as the development With the clarification of the map and empowerment, there is a high probability that Obsidian Stone will gain the consensus of more collectors like Fang Lijun's Elemental and Art Blocks' Chromie Squiggle.

Promotion method and development analysis

Art Blocks The founder of Art Blocks continues to promote NFT generation art offline. An Art Blocks art gallery was established in Texas, and Chromie Squiggle was curated in exhibitions at Miami, Manhattan, Chicago, and ETHDenvor conferences. It is foreseeable that such curatorial activities will become more frequent, and the curatorial venues will gradually enter hall-level large museums. The promotion method of Art block is traditional but effective. Through frequent curation, media reports, and public auctions, more institutional investors, art collectors, and traditional art collection funds will enter the market.

Outland As mentioned above, the biggest difference between Outland and other curation/incubation platforms is that Outland chose to collect art reviews and news at the beginning of its establishment To get involved in this track, from December 2021, it began to publish the analysis of many projects on its content platform. After the release of NFT, Outland still keeps art reviews as its core business. You can see reviews, Favorites, conversations, news and other sections. The founder hopes that in this way, more attention will be paid to the artist's resume, creative background and the exploration of its deep value, so as to reduce the speculative behavior of rapid arbitrage exit in the NFT market.

LiveArt On the one hand, LiveArt relies on providing analysis services and mobile apps to increase the user stickiness of collectors, and on the other hand, it provides a point-to-point art trading market to undertake and settle down users, and because of the user stickiness of collectors and the previous auction house experience of the project team, the average order price of LiveArt can reach 100,000 US dollars. It has thousands of certified art buyers and sellers, and the current sales have exceeded It has reached the top 5% in the world. With such a value capture ability, when it launched a selection of curated NFTs, it also achieved good sales results.

Summary: 1. Unlike Outland and LiveArt, Art Blocks itself is an art curation platform grown in the context of Web3, so when it After achieving great success in the business on the blockchain, if you want to expand the audience, you must follow the process of offline curation and auction house, which is also the direction Art Block has been working on. Both Outland and LiveArt are teams transforming from the traditional art industry to Web3, and they have rich art industry resources and aura. Therefore, both of them cooperate with top-level artists, and they must combine the experience, ability, Migration and convergence of users and resources to Web3.

2. LiveArt is also very different from Art Blocks and Outland. Art Blocks and Outland currently only have publishing business, and royalties are their main source of income. As a result, its income is closely related to the encryption market cycle, and its income structure is single and fragile; LiveArt's business is more diversified. In addition to NFT issuance, it also has Web2 business of physical art e-commerce, which is a fast-growing Revenue guarantees the continued operation of the project, which brings greater certainty to LiveArt and NFT holders.

Summary

Art blocks, Outland, LiveArt are all within the Web3 art curation track Top platforms, relying on their own advantages and understanding of Web3, these top platforms have made their own unique expressions on the narrative of curation.

In previous NFT community surveys, it was found that most NFT players are more optimistic about the prospects of art NFTs, and have high expectations for the diversified development of NFTs And showed a high willingness to invest. Most investors prefer projects endorsed by institutions, brands, and KOLs. In addition, investors are more sensitive to the floor price of the secondary market and are more susceptible to emotional fluctuations in the secondary market. They are not more based on artistic attributes Make favorites. Therefore, relying on the Web3 art curation platform, identifying excellent works and placing bets based on its long-term experience in the art industry and information advantages, this may be a choice with a higher winning rate for NFT art investors.