Hello! Happy Friday!
This week was a mix of events, but let’s share a positive one. I had one of my arts collected by Cozomo de’ Medici. The collected art is from my collection Visionary Voyages, on Foundation. In that particular collection, I focus on inspiring arts by means of ‘light’. The arts from the collection have always some spots of light somewhere. This specific collected art is named ‘I said YES’ and displays a man making a proposal to a woman near to a sunset in a winter landscape surrounded by mountains and ice. I’ll be writing the story of this piece in another future article.
Now let’s get started with the today’s topic!
Outline
Tweet of the week
I bought a fake art piece: how it happened and the lessons I learned
5 Artists to meet today
Tweet of the week
Main Topic
It finally happened… but differently from most of cases, I have only lost 0.4 $xtz (less than 0.4 $usd). Let’s analyse how it happened.
As you remember I have launched my first generative art collection, on fxhash.xyz a couple of days ago and have sold out it in a couple of hours.
I was so happy with this result and I decided to go ahead and purchase (remember this) some generative tokens on the platform as a thanks, and also to appreciate other generative art creators. I have collected a couple of tokens that were minted around the same day as mine (remember this too). One of them was by an user called Jrome.
The textures and the splashes with different colors have gotten my attention as well as the tickets price that were only 0.2 $xtz each (remember this), but it prevented me to do a more deep research on the creator of this art.
(Opening a small parenthesis…)
Some weeks ago I wrote an article in this same newsletter, where I talk about ways to identify a bad actor / feik artist and with several points to pay attention before to actually purchase an art.
… it looks like I haven’t followed my own advises I mentioned in that article.
If you see Jrome’s profile deeper ( https://www.fxhash.xyz/u/Jrome ), you will notice he doesn’t have any social network connected to his account, not also on objktcom (https://objkt.com/profile/tz1auT9vW1CesxLTFHQVGMyGwcU4xcfpe2qQ/created). Not having a social network connected in a marketplace shall not be a big issue, but for me that rises a red flag. Why would someone hide it? I understand about collectors, but can’t understand about artists doing it.
In addition, Jrome has minted his very first NFT collection under that wallet. That also shall not be a big issue… everyone will mint a very first NFT collection at some point. But again, that’s always a higher risk when you collect from a new account in the NFT space, usually higher than when you collect from a more known person, who have already some time in the NFT art space.
The price of tickets to mint an art were only 0.2 $xtz. If we check other drops, it is easy to notice it was a way too lower than others. I understand an artist minting a first collection could put a price very low, but 0.2 $xtz is a way too low, especially for 1/1s. In addition, creating such kind of generative art would take weeks, if not months, so it wouldn’t make much sense to sell it at that price!
Finally, Jrome doesn’t have a verified account on fxhash, which can rise another red flag. Verification on fxhash means the person had some history/experience with generative art. It doesn’t mean that not having a verified checkmark on fxhash means the person is a bad actor, but it means that previous experience with generative art was not shown. Talking about myself, I don’t have a verified checkmark exactly because I don’t have an history/experience with generative art. I have just started with it and have wrote my first codes some months ago, making just now my first drop.
Anyway, if we put all these reasons together, we can see it was a clear BIG risk to have purchased an art by Jrome and with a little research many of red flags would appear and could prevent me from purchasing those arts.
A summary:
I was so happy: euphoria. Never do ANYTHING if you feel panic or euphoria. No matter which of them you feel, you may always lose money!
I have collected a couple of tokens that were minted around the same day as mine: quick browsing, rush. Do things with calm, browse more. If you have no time, better don’t do anything.
No social networks links: I can’t definitely understand why an artist would hide all social networks from the marketplaces where selling the arts. It is and will always be a red flag, at least for me.
New artist + first collection: If you gonna buy from a new artist, from a first collection, understand the risks are SUPER high. If possible, reach the artist to know better how is the process to create the arts.
Low price. There’s usually not good arts for an extremely low price. 0.2 $xtz for 1/1 was clearly a way too low.
Final remarks
My loss was minimal compared to what happens in the NFT art space daily. In my two years in this space I have seen people losing millions (and I talk about the same person losing this amount of money).
In addition, it could have hacked my wallet or even something worse. Thanks God nothing worse happened. It was not necessary to give any special approvals for making the purchase, and certainly whatever demanded approval is a huge barrier for me to give.
If you like this content, before to continue to read, remember to share it. It is free for you and it helps me a lot.
5 NFT artists to meet today
In this section I bring you 5 artists that worth to follow and check their arts. They all have been actively building their presence in the space.
1. @paulasanchesart (Paula)
I'm Paula, from Brazil. I have a degree in Graphic Design and an MBA in Art History. I have a passion for the weird and bizarre and I'm a cat lover. My illustrations reflect my taste for the nonsense, medieval imagery, horror movies, the sacred and profane and the female figure. I have participated in some exhibitions such as NFT Liverpool, NFT São Paulo and NFT NYC.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulasanchesart
Portfolio: https://lynkfire.com/paulasanches
2. @line_art_nfts (NFT_Murder)
I am a multidisciplinary artist from New Mexico who creates mostly digital artworks. I began creating art when I was a teenager. I am heavily inspired by cartoons, comics, surrealism, and street art.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/line_art_nfts
Portfolio: https://beacons.ai/nft_murder
3. @Uinges_art (Mitra)
I am Mitra, a computer programmer who immigrated to Germany due to the numerous hardships I faced in my country. Besides my job, I used to be active in the field of developing small software and mobile apps. Additionally, I used to express my emotions through the drawings I created until I discovered NFTs.
I published my first NFT on Foundation, which was a pixel animation and It was well-received by a prominent collector. Shortly after, I became familiar with generative art, which turned out to be the perfect choice for me as it allows me to combine art and coding together.
Generative art is an ocean that I desire to live in for years.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Uinges_art
Portfolio: https://linktr.ee/uinges
4. @alejandro_rozan (Alejandro R Rozan)
Alejandro R Rozan.
Cuban artist and tarot reader based in the US. His artistic work is inspired by the archetypes of the tarot and the imagery of sacred art. In his work, he employs a variety of mediums including watercolor, pencil, pen, and digital art. Alejandro is best known for being author and illustrator of the Tarot des Ambiguites, a tarot deck published by Artisan Tarot.
His work has been featured in publications such as the Esotoracle, Azoth and Kronikas, L'Inventaire Imaginaire. Recently Alejandro has been active in the NFT community which has allowed him to explore 2D animation taking his art to a new dimension, that of motion and sound.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alejandro_rozan
Portfolio: https://biolink.info/alejandrorozan
5. @diego_mac_arena (Diego Mac)
Artist. Dance director. Choreographer. Dancer. Video artist. 3D artist. Producer and cultural manager. Doctoral Researcher in Performing Arts. Currently, he dedicates himself to artistic creation based on mixing the language of dance with animation and 3D simulation techniques, blockchains, metaverses and NFTs. He was selected to exhibit his work at the http://NFT.NYC event, received the 2022 Açorianos de Dança Award as Personality of the Year for his innovative 3D dance work, and was awarded the Cultural Trajectories Award for the development of his artistic work.
Working for 25 years in the cultural and entertainment field in artistic projects that move between dance, popular culture, images, technology, creativity, management and entrepreneurship. Director of Macarenando Dance Concept. Artistic director of Muovere Dance Company. Graduated in Dance. Master and specialist in Visual Poetics. Began professional career in 1997, having worked on more than 300 cultural projects. His work is recognized on the local and national scene, with more than 20 awards received.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/diego_mac_arena
Portfolio: https://linktr.ee/diego.mac
Always good information and thought process.