Prague's Mucha Goes Digital

The future is here: Mucha's masterpieces get a second breath with NFTs.

Oct 28, 2022

The recent installation, eMotion, devoted to the artworks of Alphonse Mucha, the master of Art Nouveau, and organized by iMucha, presented Mucha's masterpieces from a different angle, in the form of digital art, known as a non-fungible token (NFT).

Digital art offers a marvelous opportunity for art enthusiasts to have their favorite paintings in their wallets, securely on the blockchain, and take advantage of NFTs from a financial perspective.

Let's dive into the unknown world of NFTs, their financial opportunities and risks, and discover what they can bring to your financial future.

What is an NFT?

NFT is a non-fungible token on the blockchain, a digital ledger of transactions that is impossible to hack, steal, or damage. The NFT exists only in one copy and cannot be replicated—the one and only.

Yet, this is still confusing, right? Let's break the ice with the fungibility term.

In simple English, non-fungible means items that are unique and irreplaceable. Therefore, you will get a completely different digital artwork if you trade one non-fungible token for another.

Fungible, on the other hand, implies that the item can be changed or traded for the same thing. You will receive the same currency if you sell fungible tokens like Ethereum or Bitcoin.

The NFT market, a relatively new concept in our society, is where all digital works are traded. It appeared in 2014 when McKoy created his first NFT; since then, it has been flourishing and booming, attracting more and more users to join the digital art society.

The sales volume of digital art has been growing continuously over the years. For instance, Metav.rs, a platform that helps brands to manage Web3 and NFTs industries, reports that there were 100 sales in 2017, 15,000 in 2021, and 50,000 in 2022. In five years, the sales volume skyrocketed by 50000%, which is an incredible advancement in the market.

As of 2022, the NFT market is estimated at $44 million. One of the biggest and most important marketplaces for NFT is OpenSea, where hundreds of buy-sell transactions are performed monthly. In fact, "the commercial value of OpenSea is estimated at less than $90 million every month," reported Metav.rs.

Mucha's NFTs

Mucha's followers stayed caught up and took advantage of modern technology to introduce Mucha's work in a different dimension. As a result, Mucha's posters are now available to purchase as NFTs on OpenSea with the help of the Callisto (CLO) network, a blockchain system with a strong security emphasis, with the current price at $0.007843 per 1 CLO.

"The NFT phenomenon is resonating with investors and fans of digital art. So, we wanted to apply this new technology—the blockchain—to Mucha art as a way to bring Mucha into the 21st century and to expose his work to a new generation of online fans," said Pavlína Stránaska, Public Relations Manager at iMucha.

To buy Mucha NFT, you need to follow a couple of steps. No worries, they are easy to follow, so let's get started!

First, you need to have a Metamask wallet, a cryptocurrency wallet used to make purchases on the Ethereum blockchain. Second, you must have enough Callisto coins (CLO) to cover the cost of the painting. To purchase CLO, add some money to your wallet.

On top of that, users can decide which membership club they want to join - amethyst, ruby, or emerald. Then, depending on the club of your choice, the price of NFT differs. For instance, the poster Monte Carlo (1897) would cost 4,700 CLO for an Amethyst Club member and 470,000 CLO for an Emerald Club member.

If you still need clarification, you can learn more about Mucha's NFTs, purchasing process, and associated memberships by following this link.

Photos courtesy of Sofia Chesnokova

The Future of Mucha's NFTs

Mucha's NFTs have a magnificent financial opportunity for you as an investor who wants to diversify the portfolio and secure the future. One of the primary benefits of NFTs is increasing online wealth with a pinch of creativity by collecting digital art into your e-wallet.

Interestingly, art collectors and celebrities invest millions of dollars in NFT assets annually. So why should you not take advantage of it?

People are making lots of cash by selling digital art through the blockchain, which is only growing with a drastic sales development in recent years. As a digital investor, you could become a part of this community by purchasing (minting) NFTs, whether related to Mucha or another artist, and 24Hour Journal will be your guiding star in the world of finance in case you get lost.

However, we should pay attention to the other side of the story - where NFT loses value, not increases it. Recently, CyberScrilla, the blog aimed at educating people on digital art, investigated the common reasons why NFTs may lose value. Among them are speculation, lousy intent, lack of innovation, and the overall market.

Make sure that your chosen NFTs are distinct from this category. And it's better to diversify and eliminate the risk of losing everything by having different digital arts in your portfolio. Remember, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

For the Mucha Foundation, implementing NFTs into their cultural heritage is a possibility of having a bright future by selling the artworks of Mucha in a digital format. In particular, the company chose the approach that links Mucha's NFTs with authentic paintings, which creates an intimate connection between the art holder and digital art.

"Even physical art in the real world will be tied to NFTs in the future. We want to be part of this trend earlier because we see where the art world is going," emphasized Stránaska.

In the future, iMucha plans to turn more of Mucha's masterpieces into digital art, allowing people to enjoy the art from any place in the world.

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