Talk:Crypto art

Intro

The intro is two essaylike paragraphs without a source. I just removed a rambling paragraph from a site that literally says in its "about" that it's a personal blog.

Should this article exist? If so, there should be WP:RS coverage defining its topic usably - David Gerard (talk) 23:56, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I've modified the organization of the lead with a separate definition section and added a few sources to my previous additions. I'm new to editing Wikipedia so let me know what's what if there's any standard practices or anything I'm missing. I plan to develop this article out a little at a time if there's not a lot of other folks actively contributing. ^{hidden lemon} (talk) 20:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

rForbes contributor blogs and crypto sites are not WP:RSes - see WP:RSP - and Frank News appears to be a personal blog - David Gerard (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Replaced the Forbes citation, thanks for the WP: links. The Frank News thing was meant as a source on opinion with that blog's content being an interview with the author of the first source, PhD thesis on Crypto art. There are other sources for the particular statement so left it out since that's not immediately obvious. Anything else problematic? ^{hidden lemon} (talk) 05:22, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

American football football legend Tom Brady launched his own NFT platform with other celebrities like Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, Tony Hawk and The Weeknd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.69.189.65 (talk) 00:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Intro Claims Are Supported by Cite

...crypto art quickly grew in popularity in large part because of the unprecedented ability afforded by the underlying technology for purely digital artworks to be bought, sold, or collected by anyone in a decentralized manner.

This removed statement in the intro is extensively supported by the cited source. Here's an unnecessarily long, non-exhaustive list of excerpts that justify the basic half-sentence summary. If none of these quotes from the cite seem to "support the claims," I look forward to hearing the reasoning behind that viewpoint. Inserting it back.

Blockchain, a type of distributed digital ledger, permits crypto art to challenge existing models of art buying, provenance, forgery and the way that artists are normally compensated. It is what really unites crypto art as a genre, beyond a general aesthetic or shared platform. (p. 10)

Digital images and videos can easily be duplicated and pirated via copying, pasting, torrenting, taking screenshots, and numerous other operations that a single click can produce. This makes it difficult to garner value for online art due to its unlimited reproducibility. Many proponents of Internet art used the idea that work could be inexhaustibly duplicated as a means of challenging art institutions and their economic models. As an answer to this, blockchain creates “digital scarcity,” this is one of its most significant attributes. (p. 10-11)

Tokenization is one of the central features of blockchain technology. This is how provenance is tracked. The tokens essentially act as cryptographic receipts and are a distinct class of digital assets. (p. 11)

"Reproductions can be made, but the provenance and price history of the original can be accessed and verified on the blockchain. The authentic works “are identifiable and cannot be replicated,” the tokens are “provably rare” or “provably scarce.” (p. 11)

This format makes it simple to transfer art across borders, store, and exchange, elevating the work’s commercial potential in some ways. (p. 11)

This demonstrates the ways in which a dematerialized, digital art object can offer features that would not be possible with a physical item, demonstrating what crypto art can make possible. (p. 27)

Crypto art’s content is an embodiment of its digital environment. The work is regularly memetic... Memes are somewhat stigmatized, not thought of as a creative or artistic... but in the crypto art sphere, they dominate and thanks to blockchain technology, they can be monetized. (p. 27-28)

The technological infrastructure of Rare Pepes—the blockchain and Rare Pepe Wallet— make them simple to trade, as well track their provenance and authenticity. The decentralized nature of blockchain-based art also allows Rare Pepes to be created from anywhere around the world, as long as someone has Internet connection. (p. 31)

The digital and contractual determination of crypto art works in similar ways, decentralizing art creation and sales, allowing for hyper portability and the rejection of the traditional art industry, all while being a token that one does not physically hold. (p. 33)

...there are several decentralized platforms that have emerged to make it simpler for artists to put their work on the blockchain. (p. 40)

Rare Pepes are the genesis of many of the norms and culture of crypto art... The Rare Pepe crypto art community began on September 8, 2016... The pinnacle of this was expressed in a “Homer Pepe” which sold for over $39,000 at the Rare Art Labs’ Rare Digital Art Festival in January 2018... (p. 19,20,22)

[CryptoKitties] gained popularity in December 2017, attracting so much traffic that the transactions caused a significant amount of congestion on the Ethereum blockchain. (p. 54)

Perhaps [Kevin Abosch's] most famous piece, Forever Rose (2018) is a completely immaterial work, existing in the form of tokens. It sold for one million American dollars in February of 2018, what many believe to be the highest price ever paid for a crypto art work to date. (p. 56)

^{hidden lemon} (talk) 08:51, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

You've extensively cited this source, but the source is just a master's thesis, and so prima facie not an academic WP:RS. Not peer-reviewed, not anything like that. What makes it worth citing in Wikipedia? - David Gerard (talk) 14:35, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Which is a valid and separate point, you removed the statement for not being "supported by the cite" so I pointed out where it was supported. Now retroactively deciding its non-RS (not disputing that claim) by removing the other cited statement is odd – your overall logic toward oversight of sources here is unclear. Also, i'm not sure 2 uses of a citation would be considered "extensive" but I digress. ^{hidden lemon} (talk) 00:33, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Re-inclusion of deletions

@Quanade — Regarding your recent edit (diff) w/ quoted summary below that reverted the deletion of statements about DADA:

I started this page because I care about the veracity of information and about recognizing the pioneers who deserve their place in the history of crypto art. By removing DADA or Rare Pepes you are re-writting history. I have referenced a Forbes article that mentions Dada's marketplace launch in 2017. But I think is important to leave the other articles as a date record. Artnome is a legitimate source. DADA is referenced in both the Paris Review and the NY Times articles.
— User:Quanade 06:30, February 25, 2021

I can assure you I'm not acting upon some kind of anti-DADA bias which you assume that I have. The two sentences were removed because they did not cite WP:Reliable sources. Moreover, the content of the sources didn't even support the written claims, which therefore appear to have a non-neutral view towards DADA. When you speak of upholding the veracity of information, perhaps it is best not to immediately accuse others of seeking to rewrite history without first understanding the standards for WP:Verifiability, WP:Reliable sources, etc. employed at Wikipedia.

By all means, if you have sources relating to DADA in places like the NYT and other reputable, well-known publications, feel free to cite them on unbiased statements which have claims that are supported by the content of the sources.

Oh and by the way, Forbes articles by non-staff contributors are not considered reliable.

^Hidden_{Lemon /}^{/ talk} 21:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC) @Quanade: I wanted to note that we are using very strict sourcing guidelines for cryptocurrency articles, of which this seems to be at least tangentially related (this consensus is not found in the primary sourcing guidelines you linked to). However, I would suggest to steer clear of mentioning tokens, etc and it will be easier to be lax on the sourcing guidelines for this article. Please also note WP:NOTDIR as this should not be a list of all non-notable cryptoart. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:31, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• This is promotional WP:PROMO and we dont include advertisements for commercial non-notable websites, inclusion is WP:UNDUE. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:51, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Hey, @David Gerard:. I'm pinging you concerning your deletion of the Curio Cards section on 2 September, 2021. I'm new to Wikipedia editing, so please excuse any mistakes made regarding proper communication procedure. I've made a request below for a new section to be added to 2021 under "History", perhaps titled, "Sales at major auctions". 2021 has been a highly significant year for Crypto art, having been sold by major auction houses and, therefore, legitimized in the mainstream media as collectible art. I've included the three significant auctions by Christie's, each of which represent important milestones in Crypto art. The last Postwar to Present auction, in particular, where a full set of Curio Cards were sold, marked the first time live bidding was conducted in Ether. I'd like to also make the case to re-add the section on Curio Cards that was deleted, under 2017. Having been sold at auction in 2021, and being regarded as the first Crypto art on Ethereum, is, I believe, reason enough to warrant their inclusion. I've cited credible sources in the new section requested below. I'd be happy to edit and re-submit the deleted section with more credible sources, if that's what would be required. I've just joined Wikipedia, so I'm still getting the hang of how things work here. Please let me know. Thanks! DecentrallyConnected (talk) 20:00, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Reorg

I think it's about time the History section gets a total makeover.

The simplicity and indiscriminate nature of the chronological list-style history is obviously only inviting promotionalists to jam references to their projects wherever they might get away with it.

There is definitely enough RS out there to a have a (at least a brief) verifiable narrative-style history of crypto art by now. Willing to help if others (w/ more knowledge, good sources) also wanna tackle that!

^Hidden_{Lemon /}^{/ talk} 08:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

ECP

After cleaning up yet more ill-cited promotional content (crypto blogs, press releases and Etherscan are not WP:RSes for Wikipedia), I've put this article under extended confirmed protection, under the provisions of WP:GS/Crypto. Any admins who disagree, feel free to change - David Gerard (talk) 12:03, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Specific changes to 2021

Hello. I'm opening a new request to include specific changes. Thanks, @IVORK:, for pointing me in the right direction.

2021 has been a significant year for Crypto art, so perhaps it's worth including the subheading: Sales at major auctions.

Then, I would like to suggest the following to be added underneath:

On March 11, 2021, Christie’s sells digital artist Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days, marking the first sale by a major auction house of an NFT artwork. The artwork, a collage of 5000 images created over thirteen years, had a starting bid of $100, but eventually sold for $69.3 million.

On May 11, Christie’s sells a lot of 9 CryptoPunks for $16.7 million as part of its 21st Century Evening Sale auction in New York. The lot realized the highest price at the auction, beating out the Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, Untitled (Soap).

On October 1st, Christie’s opens its Post-War to Present auction by selling a full set of Curio Cards, the first NFT artworks minted on the Ethereum blockchain. This was the first time in auction history that live bidding was conducted in Ether cryptocurrency. The set included 30 unique cards, as well as 17b, a reference to a rare "misprint", making a total of 31 NFTs. The group sold for ETH393 ($1.3 million at the time). Other NFT art projects on offer at the auction included Art Blocks Curated: Sets 1 -3, and five physical artworks by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk for his VeeFriends NFT collection, the latter of which sold for a combined $1.2 million.

DecentrallyConnected (talk) 13:01, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Updated to include correct citations.

Perhaps you could add these changes, @JBchrch:? Unfortunately I don't have the user rights yet. Thanks.

DecentrallyConnected (talk) 22:40, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Hey @Gateddoric:! I hope you're well. Would you mind adding the above into the Crypto art history section, under "2021"? I don't have the user rights yet to edit this page.

Also, I've included the Christie's website as a source, as I believe it is a primary [source] in this case. I understand primary sources should be used with care, but can be used to make "descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge."

Thanks!

DecentrallyConnected (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. It does not appear there is consensus for this change. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:44, 10 November 2021 (UTC)