The tattoo industry is expanding into the NFT area in the midst of a digital culture shift
Tattoos have been a universal phenomenon worldwide for thousands of years, transcending cultural transformations and technological changes. As the art continues to evolve, it has now taken steps into the NFT (nonfungible token) space in an effort to remain relevant in an increasingly digital world.
Known as the Bang Bang of the tattoo industry, Keith McCurdy is one of the artists hoping to merge the ethos of tattoo culture with disruptive technologies. He uses a new type of rewritable tattoo ink that appears and fades under different lighting conditions.
Over the past five years, Bang Bang said researchers at the University of Colorado have developed a tattoo ink made from photochromic microcapsules, a technology called “tech-tattoos” that leaves a color-changing mark that is activated by UV light, thereby altering the tattooed image when it reacts to UV light. He sees the technology as a way to bridge tattoo culture’s desire for individuality with NFT’s demonstrable uniqueness. Back in June, he sold the first rewritable tattoo as a 1/1 NFT for 100 ether (ETH), or nearly $100,000 at the time.
McCurdy told Cointelegraph:
“Our digital identity will be very important in the future. It may already be more important than our physical identity today. Individualization in a digital world and defining one’s identity is what we are best at, and in that there are endless parallels and possibilities. “
Another company working to bridge the tattoo community to Web3 is Indelible – which allows owners to use their IP rights by drawing new tattoos and adding to existing profile picture (PFP) NFTs. Mike Amoia, founder of Indelible, told Cointelegraph:
“NFT holders are always looking to monetize or do different things with their IP. And we feel that it’s a very interesting way to monetize or even have fun with your IP by put known tattoo art on it.”
Created eight months ago, the startup had the idea of allowing tattoo artists to expand their work beyond their studios, and have access to unlimited ways to monetize their art. “We felt like it’s a really fascinating application for tattoo culture, and we wanted to do it the opposite way, which would be tattooing characters on real people. We wanted to tattoo Web3.”
Related: What is an NFT and why are they so popular?
Amoia, who is also an angel investor, came up with the idea two years ago and decided to fund his own startup focusing on the untapped potential of combining tattoos with NFTs. He said the project’s first PFP character collection will be signed by tattoo artists Mike Rubendall, Matt Skinny and Bj Betts. Amoia stated:
“All communities should embrace projects like this and vice versa because we all help each other. The more successful my project is, it helps all the others because it just makes more people understand what it is.”
NFTs are digital objects whose authenticity can be verified on a blockchain, and have features such as uniqueness and non-fungibility. There are several categories they can be classified into, but they mostly appear as art, music, and blockchain-based video games. During the pandemic, NFTs have taken over the art world, with digital tokens selling at major auction houses for tens of millions of dollars.
By 2030, Verified Market Research (VMR) predicts that the NFT market will grow to $231 billion in value. In the next eight years, the sector is expected to grow at a 33.7% compound annual rate. Music, movies and sports are among the many industries where NFTs are in demand.
