Bangor business, Hillview Prints' artwork is now available to buy on the blockchain thanks to a partnership with fellow NI start-up, CryptoClear.
After reading on Sync NI about Hillvew Prints' business journey throughout Covid-19, CryptoClear founder Johnny McCamley said he reached out to the ecommerce retailer's owner, Nicole Hill, about selling her artwork as NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens).
An NFT is a type of special crypto asset; a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. In broader terms, it is a digital signature backed by blockchain technology that proves ownership of something.
NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files. They are unlike Bitcoin, which are all identical by design.
Johnny said, "We can tokenize the art by minting it on the blockchain and there are many benefits to the artist. It's risk free and another source of income, we incur the initial fees and we set up and manage the art sale through the various platforms.
"Recently there has been a massive surge for artists to tokenize their art following the success of Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, whose art sold for an incredible $69m (to date, the most expensive work of digital art to be sold in history).
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"As a result of the pandemic, artists have been hit extremely hard, but by allowing us to sell their work as an NFT, this could help to sell their work to a brand new audience that would never have seen it before," the 22-year-old fintech founder continued.
"All we need from the artists is their permission to put their art on the blockchain and then we look after the rest. We are always looking for more artists to get involved in this exciting and evolving industry."
(c) HillView Prints
Graphic designer Nicole said, “This is something I had heard off but knew nothing about it, how it worked or how to get involved. Thankfully Johnny got in touch and after an initial chat we just knew it was a no-brainer for us.
"Johnny looked after the whole process for us and although it is very early days we believe this will grow and be a great alternative revenue stream for the business."
Johnny started learning and investing in cryptocurrency when he was just 17, using his pocket money. His self-taught interest has grown into his CryptoClear company, through which he teaches other people how to invest in crypto.
Nicole started HillView Prints as a passion project during the pandemic, but now her business has taken off, all while she works from the comfort of her home.
If any artists require any further information go to - www.crypto-clear.co.uk/art-tokenization or drop an email to info@crypto-clear.co.uk
