Happy Nice Mall

Last fall, Randi Hipper decided to “go deep in the crypto space,” as she recently said. After hearing about NFTs on Twitter and other social media platforms, Ms. Hipper, a 17-year-old senior at Brooklyn’s Xaverian High School, began posting her own digital artworks – cartoonish and self-referential pieces cruising in the car with a Bitcoin license plate or Coney Island. Riding the Wonder Wheel.

Ms. Hipper uncovers concepts and collaborates with digital artists, including a young boy who passed by Ajay Toons in India and sold his work on the NFT marketplace. Atom Hub. An NFT, or immutable token, is a digital file created using blockchain computer code. It is purchased using cryptocurrency such as Ether or Wax and exists as a unique file that cannot be reproduced, usually only to be liked digitally.

“I’m trying to do a drop a week right now,” said Miss Hipper, now passing by. Miss Young Crypto and has since turned 18. “I try not to overload my publication, my collectors.”

40 year old digital artist known as the Beeple It may have made headlines when one of his works sold for $69 million at Christie’s last spring, but NFT marketplaces like Atomic Hub Nefty Blocks and Offshore but full of creators old enough to drive. They promote their work on social media, not through world-class galleries or auction houses.

“In the NFT world, anyone can post online, market themselves on Twitter, and get followers from a young age,” said Griffin Cock Foster, 26, of New York City. He and his twin brother Duncan founded the NFT marketplace. stylish gateway.

Duncan said, “The comparison I like to make is that TikTok causes people to be discovered at a really young age.”

In June, Nifty Gateway released a drop called Nifty Next Generation. It featured the work of the 17-year-old jstngraphics from Washington State and Consolation, an 18-year-old teenager from Soledad, California. Both teenagers have been making NFT art for less than a year and first gained attention by selling through the online auction site. extremely rare. Works by both artists have sold out, with prices ranging from around $1,000 to $7,250.

“I was throwing things at random to see what was going on,” said Justin Bodnar (jstngraphics), who does surreal landscapes and what he describes as “Tron-style” art. “Then I got into SuperRare and things started to explode.”

Solace, whose real name is Carlos Gomez, started doing NFTs on a borrowed iPad because he didn’t have a home computer. “I saw how digital art emerged there. It was seen and valued by people,” he said. “I have come from poverty all my life. NFTs changed my life forever.”

Solace and jstngraphics seem old-fashioned compared to Benyamin Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy from the London suburbs, who posted an NFT collection last month. Project, “weird whales” contained 3,350-pixel whales, each with different characteristics, some of which were perceived as rarer and therefore more valuable. Collection sold out and gave Mr. Ahmed tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies.

“I became interested in the NFT field because I initially thought it was great as an online flex,” he said. said to the website Decrypt.

Such improbable success stories encourage entrepreneurial youth. NFT burst. For some, it’s a fun after-school hobby. For others, it is a gateway to a career as a full-time artist or crypto entrepreneur.

Magnus Aske was a 19-year-old sophomore at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, at the time of the Beeple sale last March. He spent 10 days in quarantine learning everything he could about NFTs and found a project involving a foreign country’s antique collection (his classmate had connections within the government).

“For me, it’s not even about money. Aske, now 20 years old and studying finance and entrepreneurship, said, “Working with a team is seeing things, from idea to creation to seeing a sale.”

Josh Kim is a rising senior at Colby College. cubbyis an online marketplace for college students to sell their art. Mr. Kim plans to introduce NFTs in the coming months and says this will further the site’s mission to help young creators “achieve financial success” or at least earn extra money while in school.

Indeed, for some teens, making NFTs and other digital art forms has become the modern take for their new summer job, bagging groceries, or working at a fast-food restaurant. A 15-year-old boy in Brooklyn creates special artwork for users of Twitch, the live streaming platform popular with gamers.

“Mostly to spend money,” he said.

Griffin Cock Foster likened teens’ experiments with NFTs to “kids walking around with Napster in the early 2000s,” adding: “They had a preview of what the world would look like. Notice what teens hack at night, on weekends, and in the summer.”

The most popular and successful young NFT artist is 18-year-old transgender Victor Langlois, who passed on FEWOCiOUS or Fewo to his fans. She makes digital art that chronicles her difficult childhood and struggles with gender identity and transition.

Last summer, Fewo started Selling work on SuperRare and built a following there and on Nifty Gateway. He soon caught the attention of Christie’s digital art expert Noah Davis and held an auction of his work in June. Online sale of five lots titled “Hello, I’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life”. earned $2.16 millionIt turns Mr. Langlois into an art world star.

“Victor has been living since artists made art before they got to Christie’s,” said Mr Davis.

Mr Davis added that understanding NFTs and their value as digital objects comes naturally to a generation who grew up online. “I consider myself pretty native digitally, but I can still remember floppy disks. These are cuneiform tablets to Victor. He grew up completely immersed in it.”

For Ms. Hipper and others like her, Fewo is “such a role model for generation Z,” said Fewo. “He came to NFTs and blew my mind. It’s inspiring to me that he can build a platform.”

Ms. Hipper said that while the stock market was booming and Bitcoin was over $60,000 earlier this year, one of her NFTs was sold for $1,000. These days, his art is available on Atomic Hub for as low as 125 Wax or $21. He sees his pieces as tradable collectibles, similar to Pokémon cards, a common point of view among young creators. Indeed, NFT works can sell for up to $1.

Founder Brent Lomas, Queen NFTA site that closely monitors the NFT space, which sells the work of LGBTQ artists, said the low prices were in many cases a deliberate strategy by young creators catering to collectors their own age.

“Partly to go viral,” said Mr Lomas. “These guys are pretty understanding. They can look at other drops and model their work after it. If you’re young and into social media and meme culture, it’s possible to go viral, get attention and make money with your first drop.”

Mr. Davis said Fewo sold parts for tens of dollars last year alone. For a digitally savvy teenager, making this much money making NFTs is better than mowing the lawn. “It is peculiar to our present moment,” said Mr. Davis. “If your creativity can make movie theater money for your summer vacation, I can’t think of anything more utopian or American than that.”

Ms. Hipper estimates she’s made “a few hundred dollars at most” so far because she needs to pay her artists. However, he said that for now money is more important than learning the ropes.

“I wanted to perfect my skills by knowing how to make a drop,” he said. “You need to know how to set up your store. How to create a template? ”

“I just finished high school. My plan is to move to crypto full time.”