The crypto art community takes sustainability into account

Blockchain technology’s many features have made it a hit in the art world, including the ability to stop fakes and give artists a cut in future sales.

But one of the lesser-publicized features of blockchain has caused a disruption in the art world: its carbon footprint.

Crypto art, which had been seen as a space for artists seeking resale rights and stronger protections against copyright infringement, as well as a more inclusive scene than the world’s traditional institutions. art, is at the center of a heated debate on its impact on the environment. And many in the community are responding to the call to break down existing processes for greener alternatives.

“Every artist I’ve spoken to doesn’t want to destroy the environment,” said Stuart Campbell, an Australian artist who goes through Sutu. “It’s a great place to chat.”

Sutu is the moderator of a group on the Discord chat app called Clean-NFTs, a channel that has started in recent weeks to talk about the ecological impact of crypto art, which now has more than 1,000 members. Sutu said his investigation into the environmental impact of crypto art began when a fan of his work replied to one of his tweets vowing to no longer follow anyone in the community due to the environmental record of NFT art.

Simply put, crypto art is digital art but on the blockchain. This crucial difference creates an incorruptible platform for selling and collecting digital art. This is because each work of art is struck with a unique non-fungible token, known as an NFT – a kind of digital certificate of authenticity, or “proof of work.”

The crypto art world has exploded in recent months, with a piece of art and its NFT recently sold at a Christie’s auction for $ 69 million. Artist Grimes has sold $ 6 million in NFT-backed art.

But the physical processes that many platforms use to encode artwork on the blockchain use electricity – and in abundance. Artist and computer scientist Memo Akten wrote a blog post on Medium in December detailing “how ridiculously energy-consuming and environmentally destructive certain blockchain-based activities are.”

The publication has taken off online – not only in the art community, but also among environmentalists and technologists – prompting artists and consumers to re-evaluate their approach to the crypto art space. Akten has been following his posts and his carbon emissions calculator (which was recently taken offline due to abuse and harassment) with a guide to eco-friendly crypto art.

Akten said he thinks the community is divided. Some artists and fans disengage altogether until lasting solutions are created. And then there are those who completely deny the energy consuming reality.

“There is a very strong disinformation-based propaganda in the crypto world in general to deny the ecological impact of proof-of-work blockchains,” Akten said. “It is reminiscent of the petroleum and tobacco industries.” Akten said there was also “a lot of whataboutism, comparing the numbers to the carbon footprint of banking, fast fashion, McDonald’s, etc.”

But there is also pressure to find more energy efficient systems that preserve the benefits of crypto art.

Proof of work is the computational process that the crypto art market has laid its foundation on, but the process uses a large amount of computing power. Instead, Sutu and others have argued that Proof of Stake, a much more efficient process, is a better way forward.

Unlike proof-of-work, which consumes electricity as computers go through extremely complex puzzles as “evidence” to verify transactions, proof-of-stake promotes reliability with a financial incentive – users deposit part of their money. cryptocurrency as proof that they own it and have a personal interest in the accuracy of the system.

As engineers strive to move on to proof of stake, “what the community itself needs is ownership of what we can do in the short and medium term,” said Jason Bailey. , who started the art and digital art analysis blog Artnome. .

Bailey said he noticed that artists who had degrees or day jobs in tech, in some cases, shamed artists who come from less privileged backgrounds and rely on the new art market. crypto to feed themselves and their families rather than as a side fuss.

“I don’t like either of these groups, and it bothered me to see so much emotional energy and human energy being consumed without much progress being made,” he said. he declares.

This is how Bailey started Green NFTs, a bounty system to create greener NFT systems by encouraging people to donate money for a common cause. For this bonus, part of the money will go towards creating a consolidated body of research for artists and collectors and part will go to developers creating open-source solutions. The grant raised over $ 34,000.

Panels are also formed in response to the speech. Sutu moderated the conversation “Green NFTs: Are They Bulls —?” on the Clubhouse social audio app last month and moderated a panel on the community’s response this month on Twitter spaces.

It’s not uncommon for viral outrage to fade, but the talk about the environmental damage of NFTs shows no signs of slowing down. And it’s not inherently a doomerism mindset – it’s a turning point in which artists and custodians can demand and create more energy efficient systems without eradicating the ethos of the decentralized designer economy.

Sutu said that while the art world is only a small part of the larger blockchain community, it still has an opportunity to take responsibility and show a better way forward.

“We can always lead when we see an opportunity to lead within our industry,” he said. “We have seen alternatives available to be more energy efficient. Why not jump on it now, why not lead the way, why not show how the arts community can influence these other industries to follow suit, especially if they are blockchain interacting? ”