What is Crypto Art and How Can You Buy It?

Learn what crypto art is and how you can buy this new type of digital art using the Trust Wallet app.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have heard of crypto art. Despite the nascent stage of the crypto art market, it has been all over mainstream media since the start of the year. Some hail it as the technological innovation that will allow more artists to live off their art, while others shrug it off as another crypto fad and a money-grab.

What is clear, however, is that NFTs are the hottest trend in the crypto markets today, providing new and established artists with a new avenue to earn an income in a time when galleries are largely closed across the globe.

In this guide, you will learn what crypto art is, where you can find it, and how you can buy it to start your own digital art collection.

What is Crypto Art?

Crypto art is a relatively new sub-genre of the NFT market, where unique, blockchain-based digital tokens represent digital or physical items.

Crypto art is digital art represented by a non-fungible token (NFT) that “lives” on a blockchain, thus providing verifiable proof of ownership.

For art connoisseurs and collectors, crypto art provides a new avenue to explore their passion but in digitized form. Conversely, crypto art enables artists to express themselves in the digital landscape and potentially find a new way to monetize their artistic work.

Blockchain-based art can range from complex visual art that changes over time to quickly tokenized and uploaded memes that absolutely anyone on the Internet can create.

As a result, prices of crypto art can vary from zero to over $69 million, as in the case of digital artist Beeple. Where the value comes in is largely up to how much value a collector attributes to it. Beeple believes in comes down to scarcity and individual taste.

“The value is the scarcity and other people want it. That’s it. If nobody wanted it, there would be no value,” explained Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, on the School of Motion Podcast.

Where Can You Find Crypto Art?

You can find crypto art and other digital collectibles on a variety of online marketplaces. The most prominent NFT marketplaces include:

• OpenSea

• Rarible

• Mintable

• SuperRare

• Async Art

In addition to this list, there are dozens of marketplaces that have emerged more recently to provide digital artists and collectors with a place to sell and buy crypto art. Each marketplace typically focuses on a particular market or target audience.

Mintable, for example, offers an easy-to-use mint-your-own-NFT app that allows anyone to upload files and turn them into an NFT.

Conversely, Async Art only lists high-quality, programmable digital art created by pre-vetted artists. The programmability of Async Art pieces allows them to evolve over time. The prices of this entirely new type of art are typically much higher than the pixel art or tokenized GIFs found on other platforms.

OpenSea, which is available in Trust Wallet’s DApp Browser, is arguably the most beginner-friendly NFT marketplace. There, you can buy anything from crypto art to high-profile crypto collectibles, such as Rob Gronkowski Championship Series NFTs.

How to Buy Crypto Art Using Trust Wallet

Trust Wallet provides an in-app DApp Browser that enables anyone with an Internet connection to access decentralized applications and seamlessly connect their crypto wallets to DApps.

1. To buy crypto art using Trust Wallet, you first need to open the DApp Browser.

2. Then, choose an NFT marketplace that sells crypto art. In our example, we will explore the available crypto art on OpenSea.

1. Next, click on ‘Art’ to explore the digital art for sale on the OpenSea marketplace.

You can search by the different categories, such as ‘Newly Minted, ‘Recently Listed,’ or ‘On Auction.’ Alternatively, you can use the search button if you are looking for something specific, like CryptoPunks or MoonCats.

1. Depending on what you are looking for, you can spend hours on NFT marketplaces.

OpenSea, for example, has 1,000s of crypto art pieces for sale, ranging from high-quality digital art created by established artists to memes and GIFs that have been tokenized by a random person on the Internet. But there are also other marketplaces, such as Rarible, SuperRare, and Mintable, that you could explore to get your crypto art fix.

1. For this example, we will buy a Hashmasks NFT. Hashmasks are among the most popular (and expensive) crypto artworks in the market. Specifically, we will purchase Hashmasks #12962, which retails for a hefty 3.333 ETH (~ $6,000).

2. To purchase the digital artwork, you need to click on the item on the marketplace. At this point, you will see all of the NFTs details, including the purchase price and a ‘Buy Now’ button, and a timer that tells you when the sale ends.

Some pieces may be up for auction, while others may require you to make an offer without a price listed. In the case of our example, the owner of the Hashmasks has provided a fixed purchase price.

1. To complete the purchase of the Hashmasks NFT, you need to click ‘Buy Now’ and then ‘Checkout,’ provided you have enough funds in your Ethereum wallet.

If not, you will have to top up your Trust Wallet with ETH. You can buy ETH directly in Trust Wallet using a Debit or Credit Card.

1. The final step is to pay for the item using ETH and sign the transaction using Trust Wallet to complete the process. Your newly purchased crypto art will appear in your wallet within minutes.

And that’s it!

You are now the proud owner of a Hashmasks NFT. You can glance at it anytime you want in your ‘Collectibles’ Dashboard in Trust Wallet as well as on your OpenSea account.

To dive into the world of crypto art, download Trust Wallet today.