2021 Recap: BitBasel NFT Showcase at the Sagamore
Astronauts, Grammy Winning Musicians, Fashion Icons, Social Impact, Culture, and City Leaders Gather at BitBasel to Shed Light on NFTs Full Potential During Miami Art Week
- ‘Seeker’ NFT by Dr. Scian Proctor beamed into space sells for 22ETH.
- deadmau5 collection in collaboration with Gregory Siff showcased in a digital gallery and displayed in a hologram portl by Dreamland XR. Live paintings minted into NFTs.
- Preview of Frida Kahlo’s Family Metaverse and exclusive buyers event.
- Never before publicly displayed Balenciaga drawings exhibited and sold as NFT collection.
- Vera’s celebration party of first protocol to successfully rent a $1.5 million dollar NFT featuring a performance by Busta Rhymes.
- MiamiCoins first conference to discuss blockchain technology for Civic engagement
- Ocean activists groups advocate leveraging NFTs to find solutions.
NFTs new found prominence was widely displayed during Miami Art Week. Collectors, artists, crypto engineers and architects joined together in what has traditionally been a physical epicenter of art-culture to bring the digital community to the art world. While an NFT can be used to show ownership of anything, the first and most visible use-case so far has been for digital art.
The convergence of virtual and physical art was notably seen as you walked into the renowned art hotel, The Sagamore, during BitBasel’s + BitDAO’s take over and witnessed a Portl holographic box of digital creations. BitBasel’s crypto-focused events invited visitors to learn more about emerging cultural trends and educate people about how NFTs are making a real impact in science, education, music, art, and fashion.
Defi Interplanetary Inclusion
With the use of NFTs, digital creations are able to travel to new frontiers whereas before taking canvases onboard would have been prohibitively expensive. The piece ‘Seeker’ by Dr. Sian Proctor has traveled to the depths of the ocean furthest reach, the Mariana Trench, submerged to visit the Titanic ruins, and beamed into orbit on @Inspiration4x sold for 22 ETH (~$100k) during BitBasel’s live auction with proceeds going to St. Judes Children’s Hospital.
Works like this depict a time in history where we can all participate in the advancement of our civilization to explore space. Blockchain technology is for the first time allowing equal investment opportunity into this sector. For example, by tokenizing space cargo Copernic Space is allowing access to a ~$500B industry without privilege. Learn more about the brilliant innovators who came together at BitBasel’s Space Tech day here.
Tokens for Oceans Preservation
Leveraging the power of NFTs, ocean preservation activists were on board to share how the metaverse is saving marine life, coral reefs, and defending biodiversity. Representatives from Seaworthy, MoonjellyDAO, Oceans Rescue Alliance, Oceanic Global, OCN.AI, ULTRAMARINE, DopeSea, and NFT Blue came together and spoke on catalyzing solutions to Earth’s greatest problems. The adoption of distributed networks with full transparency of financial ledgers may very well be our chance at getting on track to save our planet.
Tech Education and Civic Engagement
To harness the full potential of this new technology, education is critical. BitBasel hosted MiamiCoin, the first CityCoin along with Stacks, stxnft, okcoin, and Moonray to raise awareness for a vision of applying blockchain tech to city solutions like giving citizens voices through Miami Voice DAO. A panel of over two dozen leaders of highly skilled engineers, academics, and artists, discussed how NFTs empower the community, engage residents while improving the quality of life in the city of Miami and beyond.
NFTs’ Proof of Authenticity in Fashion and Culture
Physical objects can be linked to NFTs by being cryptographically signed as an immutable metadata file describing the work. In Frida Kahlo’s family metaverse, the physical brick from the foundation of the red house (Frida’s family home) has been minted into an NFT establishing authenticity. Ezel.life previewed the inclusive metaverse space of the red house at BitBasel gallery. During Latin Arts and Culture night Special guest 2x Grammy winner Marloe Rosado made an appearance. A few lucky collectors acquired limited Giclées memorabilia hand signed by Saul “Canelo” Álvarez. The works of Painter Rob Prior, ‘Canelo’ painting by Art Prior, plus other NFT artists in exhibition were up for sale.
The never before exhibited Balenciaga: the Glamorous 1950’s Collection was presented at BitBasel with courtesy of Artvein. The group of drawings dating back to 1950–58 has been gathered by Lorenzo Riva, who was the artistic director of Balenciaga in Paris in the 80’s. The drawings by legendary designer Balenciaga were minted into 9 original NFTs and listed on Opensea as a set.
Music+ NFTs — Minting Mau5 Art IRL
In collaboration with Gregory Siff, deadmau5’s collection Head5 was on display at the gallery during BitBasel’s Music and NFT day. Gregory himself painted physical pieces that were minted on a platform created by Looks Rare, a new metaverse studio, to launch his second collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Solana blockchain.
During Timberlands Beatclub x Girls Make Beats event BridgingTheGap Ventures Founder and CEO Kelly Lovell and Creative Director Anna Sinclair held a panel on the topic of empowering young women in the music industry. Mixing engineer Marcella Araica and singer Stichiz divulged stories of perseverance and entrepreneurship. Up and coming artist Luck and 11 year old DJ Marley exemplified success with crushing performances.
Timbaland and BAYC have teamed up to launch Ape-In Production. AIP aims for its artists to reclaim control of their intellectual property and to explore creative avenues and revenue streams, similar to how Timbaland’s Beatclub pushes creators to the forefront. Like art, NFTs allow musicians a new revenue source of residual payments and to convert their productions into a collectible, plus fractionalize shares of music similar to owning a stock.
Segueing into the entertainment and networking portion of the evening, the pool deck was bustling with anticipation of 11-time grammy winning hip hop artists Busta Rhymes and producer Murda Beatz to take the stage. In co production with BitBasel and sponsors Vera, Devco and BitDao, the event celebrated Vera’s mainnet launch that made history by becoming the first protocol to successfully rent a $1.5 million dollar NFT.
Keeping up with the latest, CoinDesk shared a sneak preview of their new animated series NFT All Stars that covers music, sports, and pop culture in the crypto space. Stay tuned! BitBasel has more in store for you until next year’s rendition of Miami Art (tech) Week.
Special thank you our partners at BridgingTheGap and all of our sponsors for making Miami Art Week a success: BitDAO, Stacks, Okcoin, MiamiCoin, Moonray, STXNFT, Copernic Space, Snowcrash, Harmony, Vera, Animal Concerts, CoinDesk, Inspiration4, Subtractive, Going to Space, deadmau5, Sandbox, Meta Miami Portl, Altered Egos.
