Jose Fernando Rico Mercado, 34, who co-owns three childcare facilities in Mexico, has always led sideline activities, including designing notebook computers that are sold on-demand on Amazon. During the pandemic, his monthly earnings dropped from $17,000 at their peak to nearly zero. He joined Fiverr and set up a team of illustrators in mid-2021 to fulfill orders for new NFT collections to work full-time on them. Since then, he has earned $268,000 from NFT collectors.
The amount of money these freelancers make seems astronomical, until they are put in full context. According to blockchain research firm Chainalysis, the NFT market was worth $44 billion in 2021. At the end of the year, the average value per NFT transaction was about $1,000, Chainalysis data shows — which is more than what three-quarters of those selling their wares on Fiverr offer freelancers, often for designing an entire collection. .
“There’s a bigger problem here in the whole fabric of how these economies develop,” said Catherine Flick, a computer science and social responsibility academic at Montfort University. “You have to have someone who does the work at the bottom, who makes these 15,000 pieces of art.”
The disparity in the distribution of wealth in the NFT world can best be seen through the Bored Ape Yacht Club, its billboard collection. The 10,000 monkeys are loved by major celebrities and those who were early “monkey” in the collection, which is now worth $2.5 billion based on the current rock bottom price. You can’t buy a Bored Ape for less than $250,000 right now. Seneca, the pseudonymous Asian-American artist approached to design the monkeys in 2021, has since said the amount she was paid for her work was “definitely not ideal.”
“It has become common to read how many high-ticket projects rely on low-paid artists and designers to create their NFTs,” said Andres Guadamuz, an intellectual property law graduate at the University of Sussex. “In some cases the artist is at the forefront of the project, but for the most part the art is irrelevant, and the value is in the white paper and roadmap.”
Flick likens the NFT industry to a “colonialism project,” where the people at the top of the chain are the ones who dictate the rules and have the capital and wealth to demand that those below them do their bidding. “The whole system had to be decentralized to free the economy from these centralized institutions like banks, but what it’s actually doing now is creating a new set of institutions that serve almost the same function,” says Flick. “They guard and take advantage of people’s labor.”
Seneca’s thoughts on abuse when artworks are turned into a top-selling NFT are shared by others in the community. Tavis — who offers his illustrators a discount on the profits he makes from his clients, including about $20 per property or accessory they draw — is working on his own NFT collection in an effort to eliminate the gig platform’s clients. and increase profits. “I know right now that I only make a certain amount of money for each collection, but if I make my own collection, we can earn a lot more from it,” he says.
As quickly as gig economy workers rushed in to service the burgeoning NFT space, they could be forced to adapt to the next big thing if — as some predict — the NFT bubble is about to burst. burst. If that were to happen, the prognosis is not good. “I think they’re probably screwed up a bit,” says Flick.
Rico Mercado doesn’t believe the heyday of NFTs will last long, but he’s gearing up for a shift: into the metaverse. “Half of the messages I receive every day have to do with 3D” avatars and design, he says, both of which will be crucial to the metaverse. “Everyone needs 3D now.”
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