Imagine if any artist in the world could wave their hand and have a platform at their fingertips to continually share their work with their fans for their entire career without a middleman taking a cut, this is the vision of Inky’s Art Club.
Art is the deepest form of expression and communication. It's an integral part of our culture, our humanity, yet it can be difficult for artists to sustain themselves financially while creating their work. Inky’s Art Club built on top of Hedera Hashgraph is leading the way we approach digital art distribution and how we can apply this new way of thinking to help artists create sustainable careers on their own terms.
The best thing yet, all of these tools are available today, for anyone. The engine behind this magic, Trust Enterprises – a toolkit on Hedera with limitless applications unlocking marketplaces, NFTs, and tokenization as no code.
You probably know what NFTs are: Non-Fungible Tokens. It’s a new way to create art, sell art, collect art, and invest in it all at the same time. It’s also a way for artists to get paid for their work without having to rely on a gallery or auction house.
While NFTs in the last couple of years have been linked to tulip-fever ridden speculation and environmental concerns there are real use cases, to support independent artists – on truly sustainable platforms like Hedera.
But how did we get here?
The rise of the NFT was especially driven by people who were looking for a way to create something new and different within the traditional art space. Artists started experimenting with blockchain technology as an alternative way to sell their work and get paid directly from collectors instead of going through galleries or dealerships that take up most of the profits from sales (as much as 50%). Those early innovators saw promise in this technology and its potential impact on how people consume creative content online today — and it hasn't stopped growing since then!
While blockchain or web3 technology has often been associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, it can also be used to create new opportunities for artists around the world. This is a new approach to using web3 tech that empowers creators and allows them to share their work without middlemen or intermediaries. Artists can publish their own content, set their own prices and receive immediate payments for every purchase made through their own Art Club platform.
At the core of the Art Club are Passes. These are special NFTs that give any community holder the ability to claim years of art work through the platform. In Inky’s case, a super inky pass delivers a decade of art work every single month, straight to your wallet, an absolute steal for 120 NFTs as well as for special events such as Christmas and Halloween. Additionally, other creators that we help onboard a subset of their passes will be distributed back — by holding a Super Inky Pass you get access and distribution to an ever growing library of unique art and artists.
One of the primary controversies with some NFT Marketplaces in recent months is the manipulation of control of royalties to Artists. This is problematic as without due care this will inevitably result in the same historical issues that have plagued creatives throughout history.
However, on Hedera, royalties are baked into the actual network itself, meaning that no marketplace will control the money that flows to an artist — a fairer system for those that need it, for those that normally wouldn’t get access to opportunities.
So, how does this all work? As mentioned previously the core of Inky’s Art Club is powered by Trust Enterprises, in particular the specialized NFT ecosystem module that is combined with an administration panel with a claiming page. As everything is open sourced anyone can fork the project, test, and deploy it themselves.
As the months and years go on we’ll directly work with other artists to create their own art club, this will feed into our roadmap, giving us a pathway through feedback to develop a simple online platform for anyone to start to create and manage their own Art Club with a couple of clicks.
So, let’s make it easier for artists to share their creations, reward their community, and get paid for life.
Want to get in on the ground floor? Jump into Inky’s Art Club, our discord, and acquire a pass of your own from Hedera Sentient. Together as a community we can come together to craft a platform where both Artists can capture fair value for their world and reward true fans who can be involved for their entire career. While membership, access, and rewards to an artist can be traded on any NFT marketplace.