What next for NFTs as the crypto market rallies?

However, NFTs are also being sold by traditional art market players, such as auction houses and galleries. The London- and Baku-based Gazelli Art House, for example, set up its digital arm GAZELL.iO in 2015 and, in 2020, it launched a gallery dedicated to digital art in London. Its latest show Awaken, Metamagical Hands (July 19 – September 28) shows works ‘by artists who have pushed the boundaries of what can be visualized and created with code,’ according to a press statement, and will include NFTs by artists such as Joshua Davis, Golan Levin, LIA, and Helena Sarin.

GAZELL.iO also has its own NFT marketplace, which the gallery’s director Mila Askarova says organically brings in sales, but she notes that the market this year has been a little slower. ‘We have found ourselves doing more proactive, targeted reach out this year than last year,’ she says. ‘I think contextualizing [NFTs] in exhibitions is helpful for us. The sales element is normally a physical work with a digital component to it. I think that combinational offering is something we’re quite curious to develop further just to write off the dips in the market.’ Robert Norton, the co-curator of the Awaken, Metamagical Hands show and the chief executive and cofounder of Verisart, an NFT minting and certification platform, agrees: ‘These two communities [Web3 and the traditional art market] are getting more closely aligned. That said, people are still finding the market tough in terms of selling NFTs unless you already have a good community of collectors.’

Norton points to key events in 2024 that have demonstrated this market alignment: the well-attended NFT Paris conference in February; the ‘finale’ of Bright Moments’s ‘Crypto Citizens’ project (2021-24) in Venice during the vernissage of the Biennale; and the inaugural edition of the Digital Art Mile fair and conference during Art Basel in June.