This week marks an important turning point in my research because I decide to switch the overall approach from “Research for Art &\Or Design” to “Research on Art &\Or Design”.
My original idea of the thesis project was to analyze how NFT arts can empower the artist community, specifically in the New York City area, and create or improve an existing online platform that can provide better NFT/blockchain/cryptocurrency education to the people who want to participate in the NFT community to bridge the knowledge gap between these people and the groups who traditionally benefit from the financial technology, which tend to be the “white male.” However, after doing my secondary research, I found out that NFT is not just a piece of digital art, but the tip of the iceberg, or a symbol that reflects the value of the cryptocurrency market. The value of NFT is closely associated with the market value of cryptocurrency but not the artistic value of the art itself. This discovery enlightened me to switch my direction towards analyzing the relationship between those two parties. Another factor that caught my attention is the stock price of Tesla. As a company that never generates profit, Tesla’s stock price went up 3000% since its IPO in 2010. I discovered that Tesla’s stock price is somewhat related to the cryptocurrency market, as Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk himself is an active participant in it, and his tweets can sometimes cause drastic changes in prices for certain cryptocurrencies.
Because cryptocurrency is a large topic, back to how it is related to my research, I want to explore more how NFT arts, as a derivative and different form of cryptocurrency, reflect the larger picture of the entire market, and who are the major players in this market and how they can impact the value overall.
