Tuesday 30 March 2021
Here are 3 key concepts, 2 key resources, and 1 key action, to help you understand NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
You’re probably noticing a huge amount of blockchain and cryptocurrency news flying around social media and news outlets. You’re also probably thinking ‘wtf does all this mean, and where do I even start?’. Fair enough. It’s very confusing.
There is one part of the blockchain universe that’s very amusing at the moment, and that is NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
- What is a NFT? NFT stand for non-fungible token. Still confused? ‘Non-fungible’ means that it is unique, and can not be replaced with something else. For example, a one-of-a-kind coin is non-fungible, because if you traded it for another coin, you would have something very different.
NFTs are a technology that runs on the Ethereum blockchain (and for now, let’s not worry about getting into Ethereum). - What’s all the hype about? NFTs can be anything digital. They can be memes, artwork, songs, drawings. They can even be a Twitter post, or a GIF. The technology then allows for these to be sold. Yes, you can sell a meme now. More importantly, NFTs are designed to assign ownership of the digital asset – something that can not be copied. Yes, you can copy a meme 1000 times and share it, just like you can print the Mona Lisa. But the NFT varifies the original copy.
- Why does this matter? NFTs are allowing digital artists and creators to sell their work where they otherwise might not have been able to. How else would you sell a meme or a digital painting? It gives buyers the opportunity to own the works of digital creators. They give ‘collectors’ the opportunity to buy and sell digital assets just like you would a Da Vinci painting (although this is very speculative at the moment).
- If you’re a visual person, perhaps this helps to explain the concept of NFTs. Perhaps not. It may still be rather confusing.
- Here are some of the interesting (and somewhat crazy) digital assets that have been sold as NFTs:
- Grimes sold $6 million worth of digital art as NFTs
- Crypto-artist Beeple sold $69 million in NFT aartwork, through auction-house Christie’s
- The Nyan Cat GIF of a cartoon cat with a pop tart body flying through space leaving a rainbow behind, sold for 300 ethereum ($624,000)
- The list goes on – here are the top 10 digital artworks sold as NFTs
It’s hard to know where to start with all of this blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Our thoughts are to enjoy the content it’s creating, and the mania; keep out of the speculative nature of it all, and read as much as you can to learn more. A few good places to start:
- Nugget’s News Knowledge Centre
- Opensea – the marketplace for NFTs
- The latest episodes of Get Started Investing and Equity Mates Investing Podcast
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