We’re going to introduce you to NFT, this new emerging trend in the digital world where art and cryptocurrencies come together.
What is an NFT?
New and fascinating, NFTs are digital assets transacted primarily in cryptocurrency. They’ve been around since 2014, but their transactions saw a big spike last year reaching colossal sums for a file alone. A tweet at over 2m? A collage worth over 69 million? Let’s find out in this article what an NFT is.
NFT stands for Non Fungible Token. As a reminder, the adjective “fungible” refers to an asset or good that can be exchanged with another asset or good of the same value. For example, all one-euro coins have the same value and the same characteristics. It is therefore possible to exchange one euro coin for another euro coin.
On the other hand, a “non-fungible” asset is unique and cannot be exchanged for another asset of the same value. Take art, for example, whose value is strictly subjective. A work of art is non-fungible because each creation has unique characteristics. It would therefore be virtually impossible to find another work of art with a strictly identical value.
An NFT guarantees the uniqueness of a digital file. When you purchase an NFT, you acquire exclusive ownership of the work. However, this does not prevent others from viewing or sharing your work.
The artist who creates the work can transform it into an NFT and sell it as a digital file. The buyer, on the other hand, buys an NFT to support the creative artist. He collects digital works as he would collect physical works. However, these works are non-fungible, allowing their market values to fluctuate. Any kind of digital asset can be associated with an NFT:
- a work of art,
- a collector’s item
- a film or part of a video,
- an audio file or an entire album,
- a virtual object such as a virtual reality headset,
- a tweet,
- etc.
How do I create an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. To do so, you first need a digital file, which will be transformed into a non-fungible token. You then need to go through the minting stage to create the NFT.
Minting involves creating a cryptographic token on a blockchain. The token then contains a link to the file, which is hosted on a server. You can then enter all the information about the file, such as your name, in the NFT’s metadata.
NFT and cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.) are the most widely used currencies for NFT transactions. However, NFTs are not cryptocurrencies. In fact, cryptocurrencies are fungible tokens, just like other currencies such as the dollar and the pound sterling. A bitcoin has exactly the same characteristics as another bitcoin.
It is therefore possible to exchange one for another of equal value. In other words, you’ll always have a bitcoin in your wallet without any fluctuation in value compared with other bitcoin coins. Not so with NFTs. Since these tokens are non-fungible, they depend on market volatility and have no equivalent value.
Some famous NFT artists and sellers
Melania Trump
Wife of Donald Trump and former First Lady, Melania Trump is one of the public figures to have joined the world of NFTs. She recently launched her platform for the sale of authenticated digital artworks, on which NFTs will be offered for sale on a regular basis.
She recently put up for sale her first digital work depicting her cobalt eyes. The watercolor, entitled “Melania’s Vision” and accompanied by an audio message of peace, sold for 1 SOL, or around $185. An auction will take place in January 2022 via a platform powered by the social network Parler.
Shiba – Shiboshi
Shiboshi (NFT SHIB) is the non-fungible token of the Shiba Inu (SHB) cryptocurrency project. A total of 10,000 NFTs have been generated by the cryptocurrency, each displaying a unique feature such as a party hat or laser eyes, making them collectors’ items. The collection is offered for sale on the Ethereum blockchain.
To buy one, you’ll need 0.1 ETH or around $382.5 for coins numbered 0 to 2999, 0.2 ETH or $766.34 for coins from 3000 to 8999 and 0.3 ETH for coins from 9000 to 10,000. Note that these NFTs have generic names that owners can change after purchase.
Beeple
Known as Beeple, Mike Winkelmann is a record-breaking NFT artist. For 12 years now, Winkelmann has been publishing new works daily, covering all facets of art. In 2021, the year he decided to “do what he wants”, Beeple had fun creating cyborgs of Donald Trump, and even a Mickeal Jackson wearing a uterus.
He first broke a record by selling a mocking video about Donald Trump for $6.6 million. But that was nothing compared to his second digital work, Everydays: The Frist 5000Days, which sold for $69.3 million. It’s a digital collage of his first 5000 works.
CryptoPunk
CryptoPunks are NFTs created by Lava Labs. They are 24 x 24 pixel images worthy of the cartoon characters (zombies, alien, man, woman…) of the 90s. While there are a total of 10,000 of them, none of these little punks resembles another. The collection, created in 2017 and offered for sale on the Ethereum blockchain, generated over €2.6 billion in transactions between March and October 2021.
Jack Dorsey
Co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey is undoubtedly the man who sold the most expensive message in history. It was his first tweet, purchased for $2.9 million in cryptocurrencies by a certain Sina Estavi. This event once again demonstrates the importance of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in the technological sphere.
