WhatвЂ™s interesting about NFT art collectors is they donвЂ™t really see a distinction between the experience of collecting art and the experience of using art as an investment and a speculative play. What were some of your main takeaways from talking to NFT collectors in Miami? So that was an example of NFTs making a splashy entrance into the physical space of the traditional art world. They had interactive exhibits and on-site minting. But the one exception was Tezos, a blockchain platform that had a booth that was extremely popular, with a line of people waiting to get in. I went to the main convention of Art Basel itself-and inside, you wouldnвЂ™t necessarily know about NFT stuff because almost everything was focused on traditional artworks. That shows how theyвЂ™re not quite one and the same just yet. So there was an actual physical demarcation of these two worlds.

What's the relationship between the NFT community and the traditional art communities there?ДЄ lot of the more traditional art events were all taking place in Miami Beach, whereas the NFT and crypto events took place across the water in Downtown Miami or Wynwood. For me, it was a turning point, like, вЂњOh, OK, here's how we can view this work in a way that is visually arresting and makes sense to a traditional art consumer.' On Thursday, I went to an event put on by Christie's and the website NFTNow, and they were able to display the NFT artworks in a way that really made them pop. They even changed some of the lyrics of their songs from вЂњmoneyвЂќ to вЂњcrypto.

On Wednesday night I went to a party put on by OneOf, a music NFT platform where Rae Sremmurd performed. You could be doing five things at once, at all times of day, from sunrise to the following sunrise.Д«ut the events I thought were the most interesting were the ones indicative of the intersection of the art and crypto worlds and how theyвЂ™re growing together. Every company, every brand, every artist, every gallery is putting on an event. So what was your weekend like? What kinds of events did you go to? So while you do have a distinction between collectors who only have NFT works and those who are pretty married to their traditional works, I think that you're only going to see those differences dissolve going forward. I get the sense that people who are interested in emerging art and the people who are interested in crypto or digital art are actually quite overlapping-and the people who have money to spend, especially in the younger generations of those two worlds, are pretty much the same. Why did Art Basel embrace NFTs so fully this year? Can you tell me about Art Basel Miami and why you decided to attend?ДЄs someone who has started reporting more on the crypto and NFT worlds, and the intersection of those and the culture community, it quickly became clear this was a really unique week-because they were really meeting in a big way for the first time. Here are excerpts of our conversation, edited for clarity. I wanted to learn more about the festival, and was frankly very jealous of her time on the beach, soI called up Raisa to learn more about what she saw. On Wednesday, she published a dispatch about the collectors at Art Basel.

One of those attendees was TIMEвЂ™s own Raisa Bruner, who has been covering NFT art and culture over the last year, and also attended NFT.NYC last month. They attended gallery shows, interactive experiences, concerts, panel events, parties and more. Last weekend however, thousands of NFT and crypto enthusiasts descended on Miami for the annual Art Basel festival, which has become a major sandbox for NFT art. Given that the rise of NFTs happened over the pandemic, there have been very few in-person gatherings of this community.

Guests view an NFT art piece by German artist Mario Klingemann at Art Basel Miami 2021. Featuring Rae Sremmurd, body mapping, a Tezos booth and more |Д«ehind the Scenes at Art Basel Miami: The Biggest IRL Metaverse Party Yet

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