South African artist uses NFT marketplace to promote art

South African artist Fhatuwani Mukheli paints a portrait of a woman in his Johannesburg studio, he is creating not only the work before him but also a digital asset that will adorn a virtual world.

Mukheli uses The Tree, an online marketplace for South African artists to promote and sell their art as non-fungible NFTs There's a virtual world where people are buying land in it, and tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook say it's the future of the internet.

There are people who have properties there and your art can be found on those walls. Mukheli has already made thousands of dollars by using the platform.

As an artist and a creative, I think it's important to always play where the ball is going, and not necessarily where it is, said Trevor Stuurman, one of the four other artists currently showcasing their work on The Tree.

Critics say that digital ledgers, used to store information, are not climate-friendly because they guzzle computing power.

The Tree says it saves energy by running on Polygon, a block chain that uses only a fraction of the power, and offsets each transaction by sending money to Greenpop, an environmental organisation that plants trees across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dan Portal, co-founder of The Tree, said that it is not just about art and story, it's about making sure that this growth in technology for artists doesn't come at a cost to the planet.