How popular is NFT in South Korea? NFT works by celebrity artists sold for 200 million won in 30 minutes

This article introduces the popularity of NFT in South Korea and the copyright issues that have arisen in the NFT industry, as well as an analysis of the current status of NFT in South Korea. (This article has a total of 1948 words and takes about 4 minutes to read)

Recently, NFT has set off a craze in South Korea and has become the "top stream" in the Korean digital currency industry. How popular is NFT in South Korea? Let's take a look at two recent news, which will definitely surprise you.

Works by Korean actor and painter Ha Jung-woo

"The Story of Marti Palace Hotel"

The work "The Story of Marti Palace Hotel" by the popular Korean actor and painter Ha Jung-woo is Ha Jung-woo's first digital art work. The starting price is 27,000 KLAY (about 30 million won, 180,000 RMB, KLAY is a digital currency developed by Kakao). This work can only be traded with KLAY. It is an NFT painting made of digital art and also includes animation and sound effects. In the end, the work was sold for 56 million won (about 300,000 RMB).

Klip Drops Sale Digital Art Writer

"Crevas #1" by "Mr. Misang"

Kakao's blockchain technology subsidiary "Ground X" recently sold the NFT work "Crevas #1" by digital art artist "Mr. Misang". Although each person was limited to one piece, 999 works were still sold out within 30 minutes of the start of the sale, with a total sales amount of more than 109.89 million won (about 1.2 million yuan).

Although some people say that NFT "cannot be seen or touched; you can neither own the physical object nor hang it at home", people's attention to NFT is still growing. The art world and major companies are actively investing in it, making plans in the NFT field by developing the NFT market, discovering and cultivating new artists who create NFT works, and so on.
NFT is a means of giving unique value to digital intellectual property (IP) such as pictures or articles. Simply put, it is like a "copy of the register" in the digital world. In the digital world where it is difficult to prove whether a work is an original, NFT gives the work the right to prove that it is an original, and this right can be traded.
According to NonFungible.com, an NFT market analysis company, NFT trading volume reached $2 billion (about 2.3 trillion won) in the first quarter of this year. The NFT market size was $140 million (about 160 billion won) in 2019, and expanded to $340 million (about 390 billion won) last year, showing a rapid growth momentum since entering this year.
NFT digital artworks are mainly created using IT equipment such as computers, and can be expressed by adding sound effects to existing paintings or making them into dynamic pictures. Ground X released a beta version of "Klip Drops" on July 21 to display and distribute limited edition digital works. This is a structure that NFTs digital works created by artists with Kakao's own blockchain Klaytn, and certifies and sells their originality.

It is said that after entering the KakaoTalk platform, digital art has quickly taken root in the field of some NFT experts and enthusiasts. The art joint purchasing platform "Pica Project" is currently holding an NFT emerging artist competition. The two artists selected this time will receive 500,000 Pica coins (about 10 million won), and their NFT works will be auctioned within this year. Dunamu, which operates Upbit, one of the four major digital currency exchanges in South Korea, also recently cooperated with Seoul Auction Company to hold a competition to discover emerging artists.

Is this a new opportunity for emerging artists?

Some creators welcome NFT very much. After all, in the existing art market, artists generally sign exclusive contracts with specific galleries to engage in artistic activities, but after the works are sold, the galleries will deduct most of the sales amount as commissions. Moreover, for new writers, the threshold to enter the art world is very high. On the contrary, NFT only charges a part of the handling fee, and the rest belongs to the author. Ground X's operating policy is to "return 90% of the proceeds to the author."
And every time an artist's work is sold for a second or multiple times, the author can track and earn revenue from each transaction, which is also beneficial to the author. NFT can track the purchase path of all works based on smart contracts on Ethereum. Because detailed information such as who the original author of the work is, when the work was sold, and to whom it was sold is stored on the blockchain. Every time a work is sold without transferring ownership and copyright, the original author can receive a certain amount of royalties.

NFT "Crypto Punk #7523" drawn with software (SW) code,

Last month, the transaction was completed for approximately 13 billion won.

Ownership and copyright conflicts, unclear standards

Since NFT-related businesses are just getting started, there are also some issues that need to be resolved, of which copyright issues are a representative example. Problems arise when "ownership" and "copyright" conflict.

This is the case when the owner creates and sells digital art as an NFT without the original artist's permission. Recently, the auction of NFT works by contemporary artists Lee Jung-seop, Kim Whan-ki, and Park Soo-geun was caught up in a copyright dispute. Auction company Wannabe International attempted to conduct an online auction by making Kim Whan-ki's "Fully Ignite - Untitled", Park Soo-geun's "Two Children and Two Mothers", and Lee Jung-seop's "Bull" into NFTs, but the family of the late writer Park Soo-geun said, "It is suspected that the work is a fake," which raised copyright issues.
At present, the NFT price evaluation standards are not perfect, which is also worth noting. Industry insiders said: "Some NFT prices may be inflated. It should be said that there is no suitable pricing standard for NFT at present, so you need to consider carefully when making investment decisions."

Conclusion

From the news in South Korea, we can see that NFT is developing rapidly in the Korean digital currency industry. Blockchain smart contracts are a natural technology to protect intellectual property rights, which is a boon for artists. In South Korea, more and more NFTs are sold at sky-high prices, which is enough to prove that people are enthusiastic about NFTs. I believe that South Korea, which is famous for its Korean culture, will have more excellent NFT works in the future, and the Korean NFT market will become more and more vibrant.

However, there must be gamblers under "FOMO", and the possible "sky-high returns" also make many investors ignore the risks. Even if NFT does not have a suitable pricing standard, there must be a suitable hedging method.