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Comment by belladoreai | Hacker News Reader

> A lot of artists already are using crypto to accept payments. Look at “crypto art” space as a whole.

You're conflating collectibles, which are purchased for speculative purposes, to the kinds of art which are purchased for consumption. Yes, you can use crypto to build ponzi-like games for digital assets, everybody knows that. The question here is can an artist charge like $5 for a comic book or $10 for a monthly subscription. And the answer to that question is no, not to an extent where they would be able to afford food, which they need in order to continue living.

> You don’t need tons of paperwork to set up on and off ramps.

I personally needed a passport, a driver's license, and a recent electricity bill. I also needed a mobile phone with video camera, plus a banking connection which is crypto friendly.

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Owning a passport and electricity bill is hardly “paperwork,” lol. If an artist can’t manage to set up a crypto account—or a bank account, which requires the exact same documents—they are probably not in a position to run their own art business.

> You're conflating collectibles

No—I am talking broadly about artists selling their work through crypto, and some of it does include $5 comics, like Sloth Zine:

https://x.com/slothzine/status/1763674161333834057?s=20

> If an artist can’t manage to set up a crypto account—or a bank account, which requires the exact same documents—they are probably not in a position to run their own art business.

The artist, sure. But once the artist goes through all that work to set it up, will they get access to food which they need in order to continue living? No, they won't. Because the consumers will prefer products that are easy to pay for.

> No—I am talking broadly about artists selling their work through crypto, and some of it does include $5 comics, like Sloth Zine:

aaand the link you gave is an NFT collectible...

The price point was not the main point here - sure an NFT doesn't have to be expensive it can also be cheap. That was not the point. My point was that the audience for ponzi-like NFT games is different from the audience for more "traditional" consumers of art. If you are, for example, an artist who currently makes comic books that people will pay for with Visa and Mastercard, you will not be able to provide food on the table by switching into crypto payments.

Your argument lies on the assumption that consumers are too lazy to follow their favourite content creators to new payment avenues.

The reality is that a number of artists have already added crypto as an alternate and additional payment stream, and this includes comic artists and illustrators. This trend will probably continue as more platforms and payment processors make changes that are generally against the interests of their users (eg: the OP).

Can you show me one (1!) artist who makes a living wage off of crypto payments without any kind of ponzi-like speculative aspect? An artist who is just using crypto as means of payment AND actually getting paid with it. Just one example is enough.

I'm interested to see this as well. I know some who do Patreon and crypto, but none are just crypto.

I’ve already given you an example: Sloth Zine, an indie digital comic by illustrator Burka Bayram that is selling via crypto & tokenization. You can even read about his story here:

https://canvasrebel.com/meet-burka-bayram/

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