On-chain Digital Art Advocates Hope This Latest Major Donation Can Take The Space Forward

Pseudonymous digital art collector and writer behind popular digital art newsletter the Medici Minutes who goes by the Twitter handle @CozomoMedici recently announced a major on-chain donation to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. According to a tweet by @CozomoMedici, whose full name on Twitter is Cozomo de’ Medici, he made the first donation of on-chain art from a collector to a museum, which marks the largest such collection of digital art to enter a museum.

Specifically, The Cozomo de’ Medici Collection donated 22 digital art non-fungible tokens, including works spanning from 2017 to 2022, from 13 different international artists. Cozomo de’ Medici stated that “these works will now sit in one of the greatest art collections in human history, alongside physical works defining the last 6,000 years of artistic expression”. These include “works by Rembrandt, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Cassatt, Andy Warhol, Monet, and Georgia O’Keeffe”.

Cozomo de’ Medici expressed hope that “this donation helps forever cement the on-chain art movement in the canon of art history… Paves the way for museums everywhere to hold the greatest digital works alongside the greatest physical… And inspires us all to keep making history together”.

A Beginner’s Guide to NFTs: What You Should Know

Crypto Community Praises Donation

Digital art enthusiasts were quick to praise the donation, which many stated would help take the digital art space forward. “Thank you on behalf of all of us for such a generous contribution! Really excited to see such great work being stewarded by a great institution!” said @pixelpete.

“It’s things like this that will actually move the space forward and help us reach our full potential. Thank you, this is amazing. Can’t wait to go when it’s ready” said @500arts.

“Dude you are a true GOAT for doing this… congrats and thank you… will go a long way towards building awareness around NFT art as a fine art form” said @iamDCinvestor.

“Congratulations Signore on this major milestone for the entire space. We’re all very proud of your leadership & generosity” said @kukulabanze.

On-chain Art Revolution – Still In Its Early Stages

“The beauty of this digital world is everything is on-chain and online”, Cozomo de’ Medici told digital art-focused website Artnet News in a call. “You can see other works from the artists you are interested in, who owns them, where they’ve been, and the prices—versus the contemporary art world, where it’s really tough to get access to that data as an outsider,” he added.

Medici told the digital art news website that his hope is that the superior accessibility of on-chain digital art and NFTs versus the traditional art world will encourage more people to become collectors. That may in turn increase the number of digital artists able to make a living off of their work, he said.

Medici currently owns 1,124 digital art NFTs according to Open Sea. The exact value of the collection is unknown but is likely to be in the tens of millions. But that’s only a small fraction of the of the market capitalization of digital art, according to NFT Price Floor. The website, which currently tracks the top 559 NFT art collections, currently indicates a total NFT market capitalization of nearly $7.2 billion. Two collections, the Bored Ape Yatch Club and CryptoPunks collections, account for more than $2.0 billion of this market cap.

How To Buy an NFT On OpenSea

That may sound like a lot, but the NFT market remains a very niche space. Indeed, the total market cap of NFTs pales in comparison to that of the broader cryptocurrency market, which has a market cap of $1.05 trillion according to CoinMarketCap. Gold has a market cap of over $11 trillion and, in 2020, the global stock market had a market cap of around $94 billion (it will be much higher now).

If advocates like Cozomo de’ Medici are right in their convictions on on-chain digital art being the future, then it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that the market cap of digital NFT art could someday rise above $1.0 trillion.

How To Get Started With NFTs: A Beginner’s Guide