Buyers favor speculation over the artistic quality of digital works.
Not surprisingly, buyers of digital art favor speculation over the artistic interest of the work. According to a Hiscox study published on Tuesday, 82% of them hope “a return on investmentwhile 67% show a real interest in art. This “crazy, volatile and alluring world of NFTs“, is “above all a question of placementnotes Hiscox in its report. Robert Head, spokesperson at Hiscox, recalls that this investment is “risky and that there will most certainly be a speculative bubble. A few will make a lot of money and a majority will lose it.“.
Read alsoNFT: the crazy saga of the “Bored Ape Yacht Club», these virtual monkeys who are snapped up at the price of gold
Yet for buyers who spent at least $25,000 on NFTs, 95% mentioned that “the return on investment was their main motivation“. However, there is a difference between men and women. The speculative aspect thus motivates 96% of men, against 67% for women. 76% of them place art and its “emotional benefitsahead of money, compared to 58% of men.
A $13 billion market in 2021
The speculative madness has already taken hold of this new market with record sales: 69 million dollars for a work by the artist Beeple, 11.8 million dollars for the CryptoPunk 7523 or 7.56 million dollars for the CryptoPunk 7804. Online artwork sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, rising from 4.8% in 2019 to 64% in 2020 and up to 72% for the first half of 2021. Total trade value s would amount to 13.5 billion dollars for last year. Today, some buyers lament that “real talent gets lost in the mass of NFT“.
Regarding the amounts spent, it is not a market that is aimed at all budgets. Of the 595 buyers surveyed, 89% responded that they spent less than $5,000 to get their NFT collection. And 57% of them spent an average price of less than $1000. For now, NFT buyers only have a few in their collection. A third of holders have only one, while 39% of them have between two and five.
Read alsoNFT: Bored Ape creators valued at $4 billion
Buoyed by this craze, major auction houses have started offering NFTs to their customers. Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips sold digital works for $185 million at public auctions in 2021, compared to no sales in 2020.
SEE ALSO – An NFT of a trash can sold for $252,000 by a crypto-artist