Introduction
The way crypto has gripped the world and the fact that there are so many things and possibilities in the crypto world that when we wake up to a new term or concept trending, we can’t help but scratch our head to understand what even that thing it is. One such thing that is trending in the market nowadays is NFTs.
NFT, may not be a very simple term but is actually very simple to understand on the surface level.
What NFT means?
The full form of NFT is a Non-Fungible Token. Any catch from that? Yeah, as the name implies, these are tokens that are non-fungible, or in easy terms, tokens that cannot be replaced, broken or distributed in parts.
For example, when we deal with crypto like Bitcoin or Ethereum, we can always break the entire balance into smaller parts while sending or receiving it. We can also exchange one crypto into another without losing the value of them, well that is not the case when it comes to NFTs.
It’s like trading balls, collectibles, or gaming cards in which you might exchange your card with your friends, but what you will get is a completely unique item that is the same as what your friend gets.
NFTs are novel ways to make one’s works/arts/any digital assets unique. It enables an owner to have a virtual kind of ownership over the items. For example, you have created an awesome digital art and you want to sell it, and when you put it in the marketplace, you always have the risk of it being stolen, like someone getting a screenshot of your art or just simply downloading it. Although there are ways to protect your original piece of work which is implemented by websites like presenting a low-quality item of the original version to the buyer or presenting part of it, it doesn’t fully prove you against online thieves!
They are unique, wholesome and exchange/own only tokens that might be traded with someone, and the receiver gets the entire token and cannot just buy or sell parts of it.
So, what you can do is simply create and turn your art into an NFT, and voila! you now own the art just like the cash in your wallet. You also own the keys to the NFT token that reflects your art. When you want to sell your art, you only have to sell this NFT, which you are sure no one would be able to steal since it’s as safe as the crypto coins in the wallet you own.
How Does It Work?
Whether you are a buyer, a seller, or just an audience, it makes total sense that you would want to know how this works. NFTs are actually tokens that are stored in blockchains, most popularly, the ethereum blockchain.
To sell, simply get yourself an Ethereum wallet, buy some Ether, have your best digital works to be converted into NFTs which you think will sell at a good price, then use professor Google to search for the best NFT marketplace at the current time, create an account there, connect your Ethereum wallet, upload your digital file there and convert your work into easy NFT in a process called Minting and you are all set.
There are added benefits as well, not only will you earn from the one-time sale of your NFT but you will have royalties benefit for every future sell and as long as your NFT stays in circulation!
If you are a buyer, you can simply hover to an NFT marketplace, create a buyer account, connect your wallet and buy an NFT with ease and store it in your eth wallet in seconds!
Progress Of NFTs In Mainstream Media
Billionaires like Elon Musk, companies like Marvel, celebrities, and popular figures have all been quite vocal about NFTs and obviously in a positive light. In fact, some of them have created and sold NFTs for millions of dollars! For example, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, has sold his first tweet as an NFT for 2.9 million dollars.
Conclusion
NFTs are very new to the market and have already made many go head over heels over them, for obvious reasons. The money flowing and being traded for them are not small as such. But as much as there are positive voices for them, there should be precautions as well, especially if you are a buyer or collector who thinks that NFTs are futures and they will be sold for billions of dollars in the future and you are saving up for a brighter fortune, know that maybe you are just burning your cash without knowing it. There is no guarantee that these digital arts will be traded in the same high value as it is today and there is a very high risk of them going null in value. Hence, just like in every market, a buyer should invest and buy as much as they can comfortably lose.
