Linda Arroz
By now you’ve probably heard about non-fungible tokens (NFTs). They’re having a moment in the news cycle. Everyone from investors, art collectors, to artists and athletes are spinning with the possibilities in this exciting new era where blockchain and Ethereum are dominating the trend in cryptocurrency and decentralized applications.
In the early nineties, we acquired the jargon of the internet, words associated with working on a computer. Bit, byte, hard drive, ram…all macho sounding terms. File names like JPG, GIF, PDF, and MP4 became part of our lexicon. Now we’re learning new lingo and moving into the virtual realm at full speed. And like previous milestones of the digital age – reaching critical mass with the fat pipe, as high speed access was dubbed by insiders, paving the way for streaming via the information highway and the birth of YouTube, this is the year NFTs are establishing themselves into the mainstream.
The majority of NFTs represent something from real life. Just about anything collectible can be tokenized, for example a work of art, a video clip of a winning move in a game of basketball, or an audio file. It makes sense that with the increasing use of AI and VR and mass adoption of online gaming worlds, we would arrive at the intersection where our reality melds with our virtual world seamlessly.
Source: async.art
You’ve already found favorite screensavers and wallpaper for your devices and created backgrounds for your Zoom calls. Why not actually own the art?
Do you regret not buying Amazon, Netflix, Apple, eBay or Bitcoin? Wish you’d stumbled across Warhol when his Beverly Hills gallery owner couldn’t give his work away?
While hype has inflated the price of several early adopter’s work (An, until recently, unknown digital artist from Wisconsin who goes by the name of Beeple, set off an auction frenzy and tipped the scales at the most expensive NFT ever sold, at over $69 million.), even with the onslaught of the token bandwagon, there’s a lot of affordable NFTs to choose from.
NFTs are still in their infancy. Whatever you love to collect, find an artist you like and buy something. The arts are a way for us to understand the world around us.
If I were to buy an NFT, it would be one of these crystals by artist Jeremy Christian. I had the privilege to reach one of two precious green sand beaches in the world on the Big Island. Green sand is made from olivine and olivine is a form of Peridot, a semi precious stone, so you can see why I’d want this giant twirling Peridot in an Infinite Objects display.
Source: Jeremy Christian
While an NFT is called a token, it’s not a token in form of actual currency, it’s a thing in and of itself. Currency is exchangeable from one coin – token, to another. Non fungible tokens aren’t mutually interchangeable or equal to anything, they are unique due to the smart contract and data stored on the blockchain.
NFTs are in the form of a GIF, a JPG, or an MP4., several of the file names we’re already familiar with. But what makes these files different, is that they come with a digital certificate of authenticity. So one of the cool things is that due to the information that comes with the NFT, you not only own something collectible, with the data stored in the smart contract that lives on the blockchain, the creator can collect a royalty every time the NFT changes ownership. Imagine how this changes the game for artists and musicians.
What Now?
Ask yourself this question, are you interested in creating, selling or buying? Could participating, in some way, in the early stages of this market benefit you or your brand, or simply spark the creativity inside waiting for this moment? Click on some of the links in this post to learn more.
Clubhouse, an invitation only app in Beta, is a great place to get a quick education or to network for a collaboration.
Makeover Media 