Blockparty: a new NFT marketplace

The cryptoart scene is gaining more and more industry sectors in the world and this has not escaped the notice of various avant-garde NFT artists, even as early as 2020. Whether musical, fine art, applied art or even video art, the use of a digital certificate issued on the blockchain is increasingly appealing to both artists and users!

Using NFT for digital art

The arguments in favor of the use of Non-Fungible Tokens are convincing: A new form of exposure and remuneration for artists and irrefutable proof of ownership and authenticity for buyers who purchase an asset. This makes it possible on one hand to explore new economic models for distributing digital art in the world and on the other hand to be able to specify their usage such as with online ticket sales or crowdfunding for a new album.

And if there is a project that has been around since 2017 that already knows the music industry well, it’s Blockparty! The reason they did not get much publicity during this time was because they were busy organizing music events directly with artists for music festivals. This notably allowed them to secure a partnership with Sacramento Kings to be able to distribute tokenized rewards.

In August 2020, Blockparty launched its NFT creation and sale platform for legacy artists, professional athletes, and major brands! Today it has undergone a major update and offers new features to make NFTs as accessible as possible to a wide audience.

What does version 2.0 offer and what are Blockparty’s next steps going to be?

Presentation of Blockparty

Blockparty has already done a lot of work approaching and raising awareness of artists who are known worldwide since 2017 and this has allowed it in August 2020 to enjoy a contact book sufficiently provided to offer an innovative service to artists so that they can continue to flourish in creating their work despite the cancellations of music events.

Thanks to the success (all artworks are sold out!), Blockparty continued to improve its service to offer even more accessible services not only to the public but also to artists!

Let’s start with the benefits for users: One of the first particularly encouraging aspects is the option to use both cryptos and a bank card to make purchases. 

Nowadays, leaving that choice has become a crucial aspect of onboarding newcomers while preserving the already existing crypto user community.

For the exchange and possession of NFTs, Blockparty also offers the choice: to link your Metamask wallet to your account or take advantage of a wallet already present in your profile. If you prefer to use the wallet provided by Blockparty, it stands to reason that you should save this private key in a safe place and never share it with anyone!

The Blockparty team will never ask you for your private keys and more broadly, anyone asking for them is extremely suspicious.

For artists, a particularly interesting option caught our attention: the linking a physical asset with a virtual asset! This feature is in great demand by many artists all over the world but also by users who want to be able to verify the origin of an NFT with a scan of a QR code or by a few clicks.

Another feature, Blockparty offers to share their years of knowledge and experience with artists in order to be able to make tailor-made promotions:

• A direct account manager to provide a white glove service for client ‘drops’.
• Ability to leverage their PR team for added press coverage.
• Ability to use their Decentraland Virtual Reality gallery for events and exhibitions.

This support service for artists or their managers provides a bridge between the world of NFTs, which is not always so easy to understand for the current art and music industries which wish to learn about the world of blockchain. 

Carefully selected artists

Having more and more artists is great news for the ecosystem, but one of the direct consequences is having a market overload which can make it difficult for the end user to navigate.

Although some collectors like to hunt the markets to find the rare pearl, others do not necessarily have the patience or the refined nose to hunt out  gems and prefer it when a selection is made upstream. This is exactly what Blockparty offers in its marketplace thanks to a team of regulators looking for artists or art works that are out of the ordinary!

Here’s a quick overview of the core team behind the platform:

• Vladislav Ginzburg – CEO : Vlad studied at NYU and University of Miami-Ohioand sits on the committees of several art and technology companies as an advisor.
• Shiv Madan – CPO : Ex-eBay’s strategy team reporting to the C-Suite, he is now in charge of the entire UX aspect but also of the design of the blockchain protocol used by Blockparty
• Joseph Fiscella – CTO : Co-Founder and CEO of FLOBlockchain (built in 2013 and is utilized by Open Index Protocol and the State of Wyoming), he was formerly Lead Blockchain Developer at Galaxy Digital Assets
• Justin Blau – VP, Head of Music : Justin created music with Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Ninja! He brings with him his deep relationships across music from Spotify and labels to artists and managers.
• Franklin Fitch – Director of Marketing : After discovering bitcoin he joined a digital asset firm and led their marketing department. An avid art enthusiast, he can be found at museums or galleries on the weekend.

A well-rounded team with knowledge of art and technique, so they will be the ones who will select the artists who will appear on Blockparty!

And the least that can be said is that they have already started very strongly: all the artists who have already published their works on the platform have sold all their works of art. To name a few, we will be able to find SS X 3LAU, Harif Guzman, Madsteez, Tommy Wilson, Sabrina Ratte or even Isabelle Udo…

More complete features to come

But having so many talented artists from all over the world isn’t Blockparty’s only skill! It seems that other features are announced and even more related to reality.

Buying works from carefully chosen artists is one thing, but it will not be the only opportunity to interact with them! Indeed, Blockparty sees things more broadly and intends to offer more content, all linked with NFTs.

The trend is currently towards market development that links the real and the virtual and from the start the platform’s intentions are clear: be able to sell other assets such as physical goodies (T-shirts, paintings, etc.), tickets (perhaps for future concerts by musical artists?) or even memories of events that may have happened.

Imagine the following setup: you bought your concert ticket from an artist on Blockparty and this ticket entitles you to a souvenir, a t-shirt or keychain that you can claim after the concert. Blockparty’s promise is not only to supplement the current ticketing system, but to open up a whole new dimension of physical and digital experiences that fans can share with their favorite artists.

This ticket will be in the form of an NFT and the store issuing these physical goods will simply have to scan your ticket to give you the opportunity to access exclusive live content! 

Also, one of the next expected features on the platform is the ability to create “eco-friendly” NFTs using the FLOW blockchain. The Blockparty team is implementing this option in order to facilitate the transfer and creation of NFTs without having to pay the high fees related to Ethereum.

Conclusion

Blockparty does not promise to be “the next must-see marketplace” but a platform accessible to any user in order to offer them coherent and realistic services.

This kind of use case is part of a much larger trend of newcomers looking to use blockchain for practical use cases. Selling concert tickets is just one example and in the future more and more marketplaces will appear, each with their own specialty.

Blockparty is a front runner in the field of cryptoart which has really started to develop strongly since last year (see our 2020 report on the cryptoart market) and their selection of artists promises to highlight personalities but above all talented creators!

Enough to breathe new life into the Arts and Entertainment sectors which are in great need of it after the successive confinements of last year!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored article. No content or article should be considered as financial advice. We strongly recommend you to conduct due diligence and always do your own research before investing in a project.