$69 million for digital art?! Mystifying or insane? Yeah. It is insane, or even both, especially for most of us oblivious to this new tech world of anomalies. If there is a new tech currently defying reason, it’s the NFTs. This tale is more significant than a $6 hundred thousand dollar cat gif, a $3 million tweet, or even worse the artwork “Every day’s: The first 5000 days” by Beeple, which was sold for a whopping $69.3 million. There is more to this new stratum than just these outrageous sales.
Consider NFT a massive bubble on the verge of detonation because that is precisely what it is. These cryptographically unique tokens are changing how we monetize and think about art.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what NFTs are all about to understand better what this craze is all about.
What is NFT?
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies ownership of a digital asset such as images, audio, videos, or other collectibles such as books, blogs, tweets, or memes. Lately, these assets have been extending offline to procure physical assets. These collectibles are coveted for their rarity, exclusivity, or originality and are grounded on the virtues of authenticity, rarity, and scarcity.
Like the name insinuates, these digital tokens are ‘non-fungible’ or, in layman’s terms, ‘ irreplaceable.’ Unlike cryptocurrencies, NFTs can not be duplicated, exchanged, or divided to expound further. They espouse a one-of-a-kind form of creativity with a thriving potential dependent on its ability to appeal to the digital spectrum’s masses.
Before the inception of NFTs, domains were the only exclusively acquirable digital assets online. The idea of owning virtual assets online, juxtaposed with how very quotidian it is to acquire physical assets, spawned the conceptualization of NFTs.
Having had a better idea of what this mania is all about, you might still get muddled up by some foggy questions, like, Why buy NFTs when someone can easily screenshot these JPEGs?
This question is a very compelling one to ask. Why would someone pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for what amounts to a photograph that anyone can easily access?!
Well, the invention of these cryptographic tokens remedies a pressing need for genuineness and iron-clad protection in human creativity. A sense of distinctive ownership that supersedes any form landed assets can offer. The built-in authentication ingrained in these properties enables an efficient and instantaneous proof of ownership at any time.
So, in essence, having an NFT digital asset in your device(s) does not depict your ownership of such assets, as it is readily verifiable who the actual owner is on the Blockchain. And a bitter truth would be that the more you download or attempt to obtain these virtual objects, the more their value increases.
How Do NFTs Work?
Blockchain technology underpins NFTs, while the Ethereum blockchain contains most of the NFTs. These crypto tokens enable the assignment or claim of ownership of any unique piece of digital data, which can be tracked using Ethereum’s Blockchain as a public ledger.
To certify a token as “non-fungible,” they require a process known as minting. NFTs are minted through smart contracts that assign ownership on the Blockchain and manage the transferability of the minted asset. When someone creates or mints NFTs, they act per a code stored in smart contracts that conform to the ERC-721. After completing these steps, the asset’s data are entered into the Blockchain, where the NFT is stored and managed. It is important to note that the rest of the Blockchains can implement their versions of NFTs, such as the Binance smart chain and Solana.
Why is NFT an Excellent Opportunity For Young Creators?
As a blockchain enthusiast, who is currently kickstarting an NFT creative company, I would say this is a great opportunity for creators to gain luxuriant benefits and attain the right relevance they’ve been deprived of for a long time. This new development means there will be no entry barriers, no galleries or authenticators taking a cut of the profits, and creators will be able to collect royalties from every continuous sale of their work in the collectors’ online market.
In addition to this enticing benefit, NFTs are currently bringing the metaverse to the limelight more than ever before. Leveraging on this would be the most significant benefit – increasing your relevance on the various socials, especially following an increase in how much your NFT is worth.
Imagine you strategically purchasing a Cyberpunk NFT or an NFT game character today that blows up. You will eventually become part of the most elite club in the world, and to top it up, your closing rate for deals would subsequently go up five times higher or more, even though you are still the same person. Isn’t that gob-smacking?!
NFTs may be intangible and vernal, but the perks of exploring or getting a foothold in this avenue for young creators, individual collectors, and the global community are genuine.
So, having had ample knowledge of NFTs, do you still think it’s a fad and would rather miss the boat or jump on the bandwagon?
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