Melbourne stars making bank in NFTs (non-fungible tokens)

These are the Melbourne artists, animators and investors making bank by making, trading and selling NFTs in the digital world.

These Melburnians are making more than a pretty penny in the digital world of NFTs.

So what the heck are NFTs and how are people making a fortune from them?

An NFT or non-fungible token is a unique digital asset stored on a digital ledger (blockchain) that can be sold or traded. Each token is uniquely identifiable.

They can take the form of a digital image, video or audio files — even memes and GIFs can be NFTs.

Unlike Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, NFTs cannot be replicated.

Think of an NFT as a trading card, or a unique piece of art, when you trade it you get a completely different product in exchange.

Because NFTs can be treated as an asset, some thrifty Melburnians are capitalising on the movement and making serious coin in the process.

Here are some of the city’s movers and shakers causing a stir in the NFT space— and how they’ve made bank.

Lushsux has moved from the physical to digital art space. Picture: Instagram

MELBOURNE’S RICH LIST

LUSHSUX

Artist

Melbourne’s Lushsux has gone from spraying inner-city buildings with his headturning pieces, to becoming the first “meme streetartist” to raking in the big bucks through a lucrative NFT haul. Lushsux got into the game early, in mid-2020, after chatting to fellow artist GT Sewell.

He told coinjar.com he started painting crypto figures, such as Elon Musk, the Winklevoss twins (from Facebook fame) and Beeple (an American digital artist) for leverage in the industry. After Beeple shared his work on NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway, things started to take off.

Lushsux is now Australia’s highest-paid street artist after selling his NFT collection for $500,000 — with some individual pieces selling for more than $130,000.

Gisborne artist GT Sewell has also moved into the digital art space.

GT SEWELL

Artist

Aside from being mates with Lushsux, GT Sewell is a well known across Melbourne as an artist, sculptor, painter and poet. He also joined the NFT craze two years ago.

Sewell and his partner, Jane, are behind digital creative agency Milkbar, which is also a physical gallery in Collingwood showcasing urban and contemporary pieces.

Today Milkbar is behind fine art, large-scale creative printing, exhibitions and event production, with a separate arm — 4RC4DE (Arcade)— for Melbourne’s digital and crypto artists. Milkbar/4RC4ADE has curated a visual art activation at the Rialto in Melbourne’s CBD called New View. It shows off the art by artists Mankind, Mark Inducil, Justine McAllister and Nate Hill.

Mankind is a Melbourne artist, otherwise known as Rhett Dashwood.

MANKIND

Artist

Rhett Dashwood has been the creative director of his own agency, Dashwood Creative, for two decades but only recently started dabbling in NFTs.

After a near-death experience, Dashwood explored the meaning of life and human condition by creating digital art and animations under a new moniker, Mankind. He has seven collections on Nifty Gateway, including a collection of work called Scarce Abundance, which includes his popular Practice Just Practice piece.

Last month it was among one of the highest priced NFTs on the platform. He also owns 50 NFTs, some with an asking price of $92,592.50 USD ($127,544.87 AUD).

DAN KHOMENKO

Entrepreneur

The University of Melbourne graduate has worked in finance, property and software development, but is now heavily involved in blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Rather than playing in the creative space, Khomenko works behind the scenes.

Khomenko co-founded online video game meets blockchain platform Sidus Heroes, and is also the founder and chief executive of marketplace NFT Stars.

Sidus Heroes started out as an NFT collection in 2021, but later became a play-to-earn, space-themed game that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. More than 200 developers, including artists, designers and architects, were recruited to build the platform.

There are multiple gaming scenarios in Sidus Heroes — players can choose to fight in the battle arena, run for power, mine resources or discover new planets.