How Will Web3 Impact Designers and Artists?

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Design Bros are now Crypto Bros 🙃 Pass it on!

Screenshot of a tweet containing before/after photos of Adam Sandler in the 90s versus now with the captions above saying "Before Crypto" and "After Crypto"

We’ve been researching how Web3 will impact designers and artists who share work online. In this post, we provide some stats that may surprise you.⁠

Over the next five years, it’s estimated that Web3 will have a market value of over 10 trillion dollars. However, with the recent crypto crash and now NFTs hitting their lowest value, we know that the market is not always stable. Nor, is it diverse. ⁠

Screenshot of Bloomberg site containing the article NFTs Have 'Fallen Off the Cliff' as Sales Sink to Lowest Levels in a Year.

According to a recent LinkedIn Economic Graph, only 30.4% of women made up crypto hires in the United States from 2018 to 2021. That’s compared to 43% of actual finance jobs going to women during the same period. Also, over 81% of Web3 participants are male.⁠

Why are female and non binary creatives still hesitant to join NFT and crypto spaces? ⁠

Screenshot of a tweet where a bald guy is yelling at a girl and the tweet reads "no it's called blockchain and it means the monkey is actually mine."

Here are some factors…

👉 Mining or using a crypto currency online produces emissions that could have a long term impact on the environment. Ethereum can only handle around 15 transactions per second on the blockchain. For every day that proof-of-stake is delayed, Ethereum is effectively like operating two to three coal power plants. (via “Ethereum Emissions” by Kyle McDonald on @medium)⁠
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👉 Only 26% of women make up Web3 investors and less than 15% of women actually invest in Bitcoin. (via @gemini’s Women and Crypto: The New Frontier webinar)⁠
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👉 Web3 is still like the Wild West! Crypto just became regulated in the United States. In March of 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets. According to an accompanying fact sheet, it is the “first ever, whole-of-government approach” to regulating cryptocurrency activities. (via Shearman & Sterling LLP for jdsupra.com)⁠
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👉 It’s scammy! Rug pull scams take advantage of newcomers. These scams are a malicious maneuver in the cryptocurrency industry where crypto developers abandon a project and run away with investors’ funds. (via @coinmarketcap’s Crypto Glossary)⁠

Screenshot of a tweet citing that AI makes better artwork than current NFT art in the crypto space.

What are your thoughts? Would you be willing to join this space if more funding and resources were provided for creatives like you?