The graffiti economics behind Williamsburg’s wall of NFTs

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NFTs appeared on a three-story brick apartment building in Brooklyn. The murals are the work of a graffiti artist named Masnah. The token-holder pays for each one. It's a testament to the NFT boom that there are nearly 60 in total.

Masnah was surprised at how few NFT artists were trying to take their work to the street. He remembers that all the big names in graffiti were just doing renders of their art as NFTs.

He began taking commission after talking the idea through in the discord. You can see graffiti in every corner. The thing is alive. He says it's part of public space. The physical space was a good place to make them.

Masnah painted a cowboy on North 14th Street between Nassau and Wythe Avenue. The mural got some attention, but it really took off when the owner began sharing it online, with the kind of consumption that was inescapable during the NFT boom.

Masnah remembers the man flexing it. It blew up because no one had ever done it before.

NFT owners were flush with cash and many were willing to pay to see their profile pictures. Masnah was getting so many commission requests that he put them all in one place. The owner of the building was sympathetic to the project and put an anti-graffiti coating over the murals.

The commission continued to roll in. Getting a spot on the wall was part investment and part flex. Masnah says that the owners of the assets saw the value in him painting it. It would get a lot of attention if I took the picture.

Masnah's commission system was also put on the ledger. He started his own NFT collection after being stiffed. If you want to commission a mural, you need to buy one of Masnah's tokenized bricks. There is a link between the mural and the original token.

The first collection of graffiti is on the chain. You couldn't own graffiti before NFTs. The famous graffiti photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant took these famous pictures of the trains. Their pictures are worth a lot of money but the guy who painted the train isn't even in the market. He will never be credited for that. Street artists can now own that wall with this technology.

While NFTs typically represent digital images, Masnah's project is linked to physical objects. Most of the time, the object is kept in custody by the minter or bought and sold on its own. The system has been used to manage a marketplace of collectible luxury items.

The business of murals for hire is growing. Although the rates are lower and he hasn't found a building yet, Masnah has heard about an artist who is doing the same thing in LA.