NFT and Robohood: Why is it the next step in art
Robots, art, and NFT. What will come of it?
My name is Vladimir Tsimberg, and I am the founder of Robohood Inc. We developed a technology that allows a robot to paint with brushes, oil, and acrylic on any surface. For two years, our international team has been finding more and more applications for robotic painting. The robot with our technology can be used as an assistant for professional and amateur artists, in education, in medicine as a means of rehabilitation. In each market, it acts as an independent product. We are still discovering new needs where this technology can be used. By participating in various exhibitions, we have found a very high interest from the crypto and NFT community.
Robot Does Art
© Robohood Inc.
You may have heard of NFT, but not everyone knows what it is.
NFT is a non-fungible or unique token based on blockchain or distributed ledger technology that contains specific digital information about the artwork. It's an interesting and complex technological phenomenon that has society in 2020-21 in an uproar. Remember Warren Buffett's words? “If you don’t understand it, you get much more excited than if you understand it,” so the excitement around tokens is understandable.
For example, the image "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" by Beeple went under the hammer at Christie's auction house for a record $69.3 million with a starting price of $100. The site sold the work in NFT format for the first time in its history. The sale of this work sparked interest in the new instrument.
Everydays: The First 5000 Days, by Beeple
A real NFT boom has begun. Russian artist Pokras Lampas digitized one of his works the day after the Christie's auction and projected the image onto the structures of the Chirkey hydroelectric plant. He turned the photograph of this projection into NFT and sold it for $29,000. Singer Grimes, Elon Musk's former partner, sold 400 NFT with her drawings and made $5.8 million in 20 minutes. Tokens began to be used to sell live broadcasts with celebrities, music albums, and even song royalties.
The NFT called The Merge has made the most money for its creator so far – the user nicknamed Pak made $91.8 million. More and more creators are becoming interested in the technology. Digital artists say, “If there's anything more unique than my art, it's my art turned into an NFT.” Non-fungible tokens are an absolutely loyal format for any creative person, a way to monetize their skills.
It allows you to support authors and develop the cryptoart community. It is much easier to handle than a physical artwork: there are no logistical difficulties. The digital asset also allows you to specify within itself each new owner, the royalties that will be deducted from it, and the author does not need to find a person each time to warn them about the commission. All information remains in the smart contract.
Why are artists interested in Robohood technology?
First, it is the ability to create a phygital object, one that is both digitally and physically present in the real world. This term comes from marketing and refers to methods of advertising both online and offline at the same time. It has long gone beyond sales.
We are all phygital objects to some degree now. Almost everything around us is phygital. Online stores that replicate the assortment of physical stores, QR codes, telemedicine, remote working, an e-ticket for an airplane — these are phygital.
It can also include NFTs, which can exist simultaneously in the digital and physical realms. This is a new stage in the evolution of a sphere that, like everything around us, is striving to become phygital. What is it for? Among crypto and blockchain enthusiasts, we observe such a phenomenon as the digital footprint of a real object. The philosophical concept is the possibility of restoring a painting, for example, if it no longer exists in reality, but it remains electronically.
In 2021, the blockchain company Injective Protocol bought a work by Banksy the Morons (White) for $95,000 and turned it into NFT. The original was burned live, and the token linked to the digital image of the artwork sold for $380,000. This was the first known case of a physical artwork being turned into a virtual one.
Morons (White), by Banksy
Company representatives explained that they were trying to maximize the value of the painting. As long as the painting exists in physical form, part of its value belongs to the physical world. Once it is burned, it becomes absolutely unique, as the physical part is immortalized forever in the NFT. This approach fits perfectly with the trends of the digital world. The physical+digital combination adds to the uniqueness of the NFT, making it a desirable item for collectors. They care about meaning.
Robohood goes even further. We have a file that describes the trajectory of the robot, digitizing the model of each stroke. We actually make it a digital twin of a particular piece of art. So we create an accurate digital cast of a painting not after it is destroyed, but before it is even born.
This is a breakthrough philosophical concept in art.
Robohood technology allows you to own both an NFT copy and a physical image at the same time. Imagine how this could transform exhibitions and push the boundaries of art galleries. Visitors can view the works online and offline, and in both cases they will be original paintings that exist in the meta-universe and the universe. That is, online they are not digitized versions or photographs, and in a physical space they are not printed copies.
Read our article on LinkedIn to learn how you can create an infinite number of copies of the same painting, all of which will be unique works of art:
Second, NFT enthusiasts are interested in Robohood because of its ability to stitch numerous digital artifacts into tokens:
- The image itself.
- The promt, which is the set of words and combinations used to create the image when we use generative networks (in our case, Stable Diffusion).
- Rendering, the process of creating an image based on a special model, a template.
- Video of rendering creation.
The digital artifacts I listed above will be part of the NFT smart contract. We can also include the creation of the physical image. It will be possible to do this in any of the Robohood studios that continue to open around the world. The cost of this work will immediately increase dramatically.
Collaborations
NFT artists who have worked with Robohood say that such a complex data set in an NFT smart contract is a valuable digital art object in its own right. That means, you don't even have to paint a picture on a canvas. Still, the robot has become a new tool for them in their art, just as the stylus and tablet once were.
We worked with the artists Lethabohuma and Alecttn, who painted physical pictures with their NFTs.
With blockchain artist F.o.E., we also created an NFT collection of Robot & F.o.E. dedicated to the meta universe. With our technology, he was able to expand his creativity and create physical works without touching a paintbrush.
Another concept that artists will appreciate is that art will literally live forever. I mentioned above the scandalous burning of a Banksy painting in the midst of the NFT hype. Our robot was able to “reconstruct” that work, proving that manuscripts don't burn. NFT art is now statement and performance art, and the robot is becoming an integral part of it. This concept not only opens up new creative horizons, but also raises important philosophical, ethical, and technological questions that are changing the way we perceive, create, and collect art.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1JI4qTw3BM
Through the NFT, traditional artists enrich their presence in the world. Many museums are also trying to build their NFT collections — the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the British Museum.
Are we too late?
Every boom is a bust, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said. Does the market need to return to its highs to be believed in again? We are now seeing a decline in interest in cryptocurrency that logically follows such a meteoric rise.
Interest in the NFT dropped by 76%. Google searches dropped from 100% in April 2022 to 24% in April 2023.
For the sensational year of 2021, the growth of the NFT market amounted to $22-26 billion. In 2022, however, the situation has changed. The experts at Dune Analytics calculated that by the fall of that year, trading volumes had fallen by 97%. The average selling price also dropped. At the beginning of May 2022, the average price was $3894, and in July it was $293, according to Chainalysis. On April 19, the number of NFT holders fell to its lowest level in 12 months, with only 11,187 traders. This year, 80% of tokens from top collections were never sold.
Market fluctuations in 2023 in a chart by NFTGo.
However, NFT is still a technology that, like any innovation, can be applied to different aspects of life. Art remains one of the most important, but by no means the last, place where non-fungible tokens work.
The dramatic decline in the collector market does not mean that NFT as an art form will disappear altogether. It's a classic example of the Gartner Hype Cycle. It's the process that every technology goes through as it matures from hype to practical application in the marketplace.
((с)maxxannik)
The NFT is now being pressured not only by the traditional disappointments that follow a peak of optimism, but also by the economic situation. It's the Federal Reserve rate hike. Money is flowing out of the riskiest and most risky assets, which is exactly what NFTs are. As money becomes more readily available, non-fungible tokens will rise in value.
Fluctuations are also tied to the cryptocurrency exchange rate. At the beginning of the year, bitcoin showed an 80% growth, its rates again exceeded $30,000. Then there was a significant increase in NFT — in January there were 9.5 million transactions with non-fungible tokens, which is 42% more than in December. Trading volume exceeded $946 million.
The NFT art market has shrunk by two-thirds since its peak in 2021. However, the recent Sotheby's auction dedicated to the digital art collection of the Three Arrows Capital fund raised $11 million, which was twice as much as expected.
Despite the overall drop in trading volume, platforms such as Ethereum and Polygon had executed nearly six million smart contracts on NFT by July. That's a 302% increase from the first quarter of 2023 and a 1107% increase from the second quarter of 2022, according to Alchemy's report.
Generative arts performed well in July. Several NFTs such as Fidenza, Ringer, and Squiggles sold for around or above 50 ETH. A relatively small collection of Themes and Variations fetched 992 ETH in less than 7 days.
Statista's current forecast is that the NFT market will reach $1600 million in revenue by 2023. This means that users and developers will continue to build the market for non-fungible tokens and look for new scenarios to use them. This is best done during periods of weakness. So declining volumes are not always a sign of stagnation. It could be a sign that the industry is maturing, rebuilding and moving into new areas.
Robohood sits at the intersection of the past and future of NFT and digital art in general, creating a unique environment for exploration and experimentation that can impact the evolution of art.
NFT painting “Cosmonaut”
The robot allows us to rethink the perception of NFT art, to reduce the level of suspicion where they say that if you can't touch it, it's not art, that it's all copy-paste. Now is the time to change that mindset, because Robohood technology dispels these myths. It will help artists reach potential buyers and collectors, and help investors interested in the future of Web 3.0 become part of the global transformation.
Companies are already using NFT to increase audience loyalty and engagement by providing a unique experience. They will continue to compete for attention by introducing more and more ways to connect, and Robohood is able to make that connection and take their product beyond its current value.
This market will continue to grow and stabilize, and you'll be ready for it. In many ways, it is similar to the tulip craze in Holland in the 17th century. Many people began to invest in these flowers, and soon the demand reached incredible heights. One tulip bulb could be worth as much as 10 cows. Trading even moved to the stock market. The Dutch quit their jobs and devoted their time to trading. The bubble eventually burst. The excitement died down, but Holland was still covered in tulips. The industry recovered from the crash and simply continued its quiet existence.
NFT is a new opportunity to create art. The hype will subside, and the industry will become mainstream, something ordinary and familiar, and Robohood will be an honest helper in growing beautiful flowers in the world of creativity.
References
Crypto.com. (2023, January 4). The Most Expensive NFTs Ever Sold, https://crypto.com/university/most-expensive-nfts
Gherghelas, S. (2023, February 2). 2023 Begins with a Comeback: NFTs and DeFi Show Recovery Signs. DappRadar, https://dappradar.com/blog/2023-begins-with-a-comeback-nfts-and-defi-show-recovery-signs
Gherghelas, S. (2023, August 3). The NFT Market Slump: An Emerging Trend or a Temporary Dip? DappRadar, https://dappradar.com/blog/the-nft-market-slump-an-emerging-trend-or-a-temporary-dip
Milmo, D. (2021, December 16). NFTs market hits $22bn as craze turns digital images into assets. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/16/nfts-market-hits-22bn-as-craze-turns-digital-images-into-assets
NFTGo. (2023, May 10). 2023 Q1 NFT Market Analysis: An Insider Look. NFTGo, https://nftgo.io/research/reports/2023-Q1-nft-market-analysis
Patterson, D. (2021, March 4). Blockchain company buys and burns Banksy artwork to turn it into a digital original. CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/banksy-nft-injective-destroy-art-digital-token/
Platinum Crypto Academy. (2023, August 1). NFT Market Summary August 1, 2023. Platinum Crypto Academy, https://www.platinumcryptoacademy.com/nfthub/nft-market-summary-august-1-2023
Preffer, M. (2023, February 9). Rihanna Producer Sells Royalties to ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ as NFTs. Decrypt, https://decrypt.co/120973/rihanna-producer-sells-royalties-to-bitch-better-have-my-money-as-nfts
Shukla, S., & Randles, J. (2022, September 28). NFT Trading Volumes Collapse 97% From 2022 Peak. Bloomberg.com, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-28/nft-volumes-tumble-97-from-2022-highs-as-frenzy-fades-chart
Williams, L. (2022, August 19). Can the NFT market recover from its collapse? Investment Monitor, https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/crypto/nft-market-collapse-cryptocurrency-value/
