Most Important! When I say bitcoin I am always and only ever talking about BitcoinSV (BSV is the ticker for it), don't bother accepting any other digital currency.

The future of buying, selling and displaying art is in a state change. As an artist, I am always looking at new ways to share and finance my art practice. Working with social media can be depressing for artists trying to keep up with the best way to share and earn from their creative endeavours. Hopefully, blockchain (distributed ledger) technology and the development of a peer-to-peer economy will solve this by establishing copyright, making payments immediate and simple, and opening the world to share/support artistic endeavour, BitcoinSV (#BSV), is going to make it run.

One of the many reasons for creating Bitcoin (Read the White paper) is so we can all be using the same currency, good-bye exchange rates and good-bye currency manipulation and welcome a global market place where we exchange peer-to-peer, no third parties required.

Technology is moving quickly at the moment and there is a lot of development around building systems/applications on top of the bitcoinSV blockchain. The art world will probably be slow to advance in this sector so by taking some small steps now it will put you ahead of the game and help you understand where to take your art business. I am by no means an expert. I can see where we are heading and I have been willing to try some stuff. The tech aspect is something I can barely get my head around but I know this will be the future of the Art world and the world in general.

For now, you just need to download a wallet to your phone, tablet or desktop - Here are some suggested Digital-Currency wallets. I have tried a few and like Handcash for my phone (think day to day use), it allows you to create a personal address ($thecloudgallery) or handle, which makes receiving and sending BSV a little simpler. You can now add BSV directly by adding a credit card, convenient, but the conversion fees make it not practical for small amounts. I also like the desktop version of the ElectrumSV App

Look in the AppStore ( Apple) or PlayStore (Android)

Once you have downloaded your wallet, open it and you usually get a "restore wallet" or "Create New Wallet" option, we want, a new wallet. Depending on the wallet, you simply follow the prompts. Get a pen and paper ready because you are going to have to write something down, yes on paper (ironic, I know), it's NOT digital so it's more secure if kept safe, it MUST be kept in a safe place. It will be a twelve (12) word password that will forever be tied to this wallet - so if you lose or break your device you just need to download the wallet and "restore wallet" instead of creating new one. You will be asked for those twelve words.

Next? In future this will not need to be a part of the process, and it may not need to be for you, depending on how much art you sell and what you want to do with all that bitcoin. If you want to exchange your Bitcoin for (fiat) dollars because your paint supplier is WAY behind the times, then you will need to open an account with a currency exchange. I don't really want to endorse any exchange but I use BTCMarkets mainly because they are Australian (the country I live in) and they trade BSV. If you want to shop around that's always a good idea. Opening an account will take a bit of time because they need to identify you, your bank details and so on. You don't want to leave your currency on these exchanges. Send it to the address in your wallet, convert it and send it to your bank. You could just leave it in your wallet and start using it to pay for things. When you USE it you add value to it and to the entire network and when you ask "do you take bitcoin?" It adds value. You have to USE it!

So from here you will need to create a website store and plug-in an application that will handle payments (this aspect is changing/developing quickly). For now, I use the woocommerce plug-in, to create a product inventory, along with the GoUrl Plug-in to process the payments. I am always looking for other payment gateways because these guys take a percentage (third party). Peer-to-Peer exchanges of cash (bitcoin) are where we are heading, just not there yet. On my site I am only taking paypal and bitcoin, (accepting credit cards is another deal altogether) the bitcoin is linked to my wallet and paypal obviously goes into my paypal account. In the future it will be only bitcoin.

There is NOTHING spiritual about all this so the sooner I can get back to painting, the better. The bottom line is, we are dealing with a new form of money and a new way to exchange with each other [P2P = peer-2-peer], no third party required. It's a learning curve that takes time and resources. Hopefully, I have saved you some of both.

If you have questions or comments or suggestions please let me know. As I said I am not an expect but I am willing to assist you in getting started with using Bitcoin to sell your art, just let me know.

If you want a cheap, low tech way to store your bitcoin, read this very cool thing you can do with one of your old phones. [READ MORE]

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