The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced the acquisition of a significant and valuable collection of NFT works. This makes the museum one of the leading places for digital art. A portion of the 22-tokenized digital collection was donated to the museum by renowned NFT collector Cozomo de' Medici. The collection includes CryptoPunks NFT #3831, which sold $2.1 million USD in 2021.

Interestingly, LACMA avoided using the term NFT because they did not want the digital assets in their possession to fit solely within the NFT framework, but to assume the status of a new, growing art form. Instead, terms such as "blockchain art" and "on-chain art" were introduced.

Some other brands have taken the same path, including Reddit.

The digital works owned by LACMA are by far the largest blockchain collection ever acquired by any American museum. In addition to the acquisition from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, they additionally received donations from the Center Pompidou in Paris. In turn, they received CryptoPunk's NFT collection from Yuga Labs.

Yuga also donated CryptoPunk artwork to the Miami Institute of Contemporary Art in November 2021.

In addition, LACMA has also acquired a number of other NFTs, including a Chromie Squiggle by artist Eric "Snowfro" Calderon, founder of Art Blocks.

If you're wondering why the Los Angeles Museum of Art values CryptoPunk's NFT collection, and why museums, in general, are buying digital art more often, here are 5 facts to illustrate:

1. CryptoPunks is a series of 10,000 unique 8-bit characters created by Larva Labs in 2017, considered to be one of the earliest examples of NFT artwork. Each CryptoPunk has its own unique features and attributes, some of which are rarer and more valuable than others.
2. CryptoPunk #3831, which was donated to LACMA, is one of the rare works to feature an "alien". There are only nine of them.
3. CryptoPunks have become highly demandable for collectors and investors. Some characters are even sold at auctions for millions of dollars. And the total market capitalization of CryptoPunks is currently estimated at more than $1 billion.
4. The value of CryptoPunks is largely due to their scarcity, uniqueness, and historical significance as early NFT art. CryptoPunk has also become a symbol of NFT rush.
5. The donation of CryptoPunk and other NFT artworks to LACMA is an important milestone in establishing NFTs as a new art form. It also highlights the growing connection between the worlds of art and technology.

Summary

The NFT boom has slowed in recent years, but museums have been active in purchasing digital assets, suggesting that the industry may be returning to its former glory. In addition, interest in NFT artworks created on the Bitcoin blockchain is increasing significantly.

If you decide to buy your first NFT, or to add to your existing collection, you will need cryptocurrencies. There are two main crypto-assets used to purchase digital works of art, namely Polygon MATIC and Ethereum.

You can buy the mentioned crypto on Cryptal using both Instant Trade and Spot Exchange.

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