Minted

The PBS documentary Minted, directed by Nicholas Bruchman, explores NFTs and the artists behind them. It begins with the massive sale of Beeple’s “Everydays,“ which went for $69 million in March of 2021. This caused NFTs to gain a lot more attention. NFTs blew up in 2021 with a huge trading increase, but by 2023, their monetary values were substantially down. Only time will tell if these digital art pieces can make a comeback.

The film, written by Bruchman and Shawn Hazelett, shifts to other artists who benefited from putting their art as NFTs on the blockchain. This includes Latashá, a hip-hop artist who makes videos independently, guerilla-style. Justin Aversano is also featured, who created a lot of pieces featuring twins in a series called “Twin Flames.“ He says in the film that he sold some works as NFTs in three days that he had trouble selling for years.  Karina Matahari is one of the more interesting subjects in the film. She lived in Cuba and struggled to showcase her art due to censorship laws in the country. Matahari eventually finds an escape to a new life in Spain after making enough money through NFTs.

“NFTs blew up in 2021 with a huge trading increase, but by 2023, their monetary values were substantially down.”

Artists and traders also faced difficulties with NFTs down the line. Royalties for artists eventually diminished, and many people got into NFTs just for the buying and selling of profile pictures like the “Bored Apes“ collection. One person in the film says he lost $500k from just one click due to a profile picture scam link.

There are a lot of talking heads and scattered focuses in Minted. Bruckman tries to cover too much ground in a film that only runs 80 minutes. He keeps the pace brisk with help from editor Gil Seltzer and a bouncy electronic music score by Dan Deacon, but too much information and too many artists are crammed into such little time.

Minted has a lot of colorful works of art to admire over its runtime. It makes you root for the hardworking artists who benefited from NFTs while also recognizing that some just exploited the monetary side. By the end, Beeple wonders if his work will be remembered in 100 years. The world will have to wait and see how digital art and NFTs move forward.