NFTs in Latin America

There’s nothing that speaks of Latin America’s culture like the way the word dynamic does. The strong spirit of Latin Americans is manifested by the mixture of vibrancy, vitality and colors in every aspect of daily life. When it comes to crypto art and NFTs the fintech industry is developing alongside Latin America’s potential for innovation.

From the perspective of other parts of the world, Hispanic cultures and Latin America tend to be perceived with a single cultural unification. This generalization can be attributed to the fact that most of the countries of Latin America have lived through analogous historical and cultural development during the era of colonization and beyond. However, there are thousands of cultures within Latin America. The diversity and differences are many and rich with each culture’s singular influence, even while there are numerous similarities and connections across the national territories.

Art in Latin America is a powerful form of expression, weaved into the intricacies of every part of life, and now takes on a new role in technology as well. For generations it has been employed to express human emotion in creativity, nature, political struggles, and oppression, freedom and many other subjects. Due to its visual nature, it captivates the soul to a deeper level and is part of the vital rhythm that keeps these cultures drumming in their own rhythm.

In comparison to other regions, Latin America has embraced crypto openly. New platforms and technologies are being built to facilitate this transformation, and crypto art is growing steadily and sustainably at a fairly fast pace. The actions and voices of Latin American artists, curators and dealers confirm this.

So what is this new trend that is beginning to gain attention among innovative entrepreneurs and artists?

Crypto art is a category of art related to blockchain technology. Blockchain is the solving and creating of codes based on computer science and mathematics with the purpose to encrypt data and by doing so protect it from being read, hacked or stolen by third parties. Cryptocurrency on the other hand is a secure digital encrypted token meant for monetary exchange, and in the case of crypto art it occurs through the acquisition of an authorship between two people. In short, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are digital tokens that can be understood as certificates of ownership of virtual or physical assets.

The rise of crypto art and NFTs in Latin America can be attributed to many different factors. A central reason is that these cultures which thrive in their vitality and vibrancy consist mostly of young people who are not only willing to take the adventurous leap into cryptocurrencies but also find reassurance in protecting something of potential value especially when countries are financially unstable and governments are unpredictable.

When it comes to rapid and secure transactions, cryptocurrencies are definitely a viable option and many people transfer or receive funds between family and friends in other countries via crypto, bitcoin or other blockchain technology.

Beyond secure transactions crypto art opens a new path through which Latin American artists can promote and sell their artwork, with platforms where only the digitized work and an internet connection are necessary. This is extremely significant because the working conditions of artists in most Latin American countries are still precarious: production expenses and artist fees are unheard of, and many curators and artists continue to have to draw on very limited resources in order to make things possible.

There are several important initiatives that explore how blockchain technology, particularly through NFTs can support and bring greater awareness to artists in Latin America.  “It is an opportunity to proclaim that painting lives, transcends time, space, technology and beats infinitely”¹, said Contemporary Mexican artist Juan Carlos Del Valle, who marked history with the auction of the first NFT in Mexico.

This year has also seen the creation of MALa (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano)², the first Latin American crypto art museum. This space houses works as NFTs , where a hundred artists from the region offer their exclusive creations. Although it is a virtual museum, the founders Juan Pablo Papaleo  and Lucas Doi from Argentina and Christopher Ramos y Carlos Kong from Peru, also plan to open small galleries in the next few years in different cities such as Buenos Aires, Lima, New York and Amsterdam.

Sylvia Barrero, co-founder of the platform Artrade.co, one of the largest online galleries in South America, is curating  a collection of digital art will be minted as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Zeromint, leading the online market into blockchain technology.

Beyond institutions, the amount of self directed artists diving into NFT’s is numerous and growing. From well known artist with a long trajectory in gallery and museum shows to emerging artists looking to break the mold and celebrate new technologies and ways of relating to art, Latin American artists are bringing their unique and vibrant works of art to life as NFTs.