This Article First Appeared In The Print On October 16, 2022.
Karan Kalra, a 30-year-old multidisciplinary visual engineer, woke up to a barrage of emails, an unusual beginning to a seemingly ordinary day at his home in Delhi. Just a day prior to that, he had minted his NFT ‘Dreamers’, an illustration of love for his dog Zelda enjoying a car ride. He had managed to sell a few artworks before but he was still awaiting his first ‘big’ sale. It came on that day in 2021. A sense of validation and triumph rushed through his veins when he realized that the artwork was purchased for around 600 WazirX – an India-based cryptocurrency – valued at approximately Rs 80,000 at the time. Kalra hasn’t looked back since.