What is an NFT? The “certificate of authenticity” that moves millions of dollars

NFTs are unique identifiers for a digital asset, which can be a work of art, a newspaper article, a meme, or a tweet.

From the NBA to the robot Sophia, examples of its use that is trending today.

Photograph provided by Christie's auction house showing the work "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," a collage of daily digital bytes measuring 21.069 x 21.069 pixels created by artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold as an NFT for USD 69 million. (EFE/Christie's)

These days, it's becoming increasingly common to read or hear about the sale of an NFT . It's one of the buzzwords of the moment, and in Spanish it stands for non-fungible token , meaning a digital asset that comes with a kind of "certificate of authenticity." It's unique in the digital world.

If someone buys an original work of art by a particular artist, the most explicit proof of that act is the signature and having the painting hanging in their home, for example. But what if we were talking about a digital work of art? There could be thousands of users who have a copy of that file (just like the number of copies of the painting), but only one person will have the original, that is, their NFT.

The NFT gives a sense of ownership to a digital asset, which could be a song, an NBA video , or a tweet . The non-fungible token is registered with a unique string of characters (numbers, letters, and symbols) that represents it on the blockchain, that immutable "ledger."

A good is considered non-fungible when it doesn't wear out with use and is also unique, meaning it cannot be replaced by an identical one. Blockchain has systems that allow the creation of unique digital identifiers for exchange. Thus, we could all create our own NFTs (although that doesn't guarantee anyone will buy them).

NFTs can be created from all kinds of digital elements, from tweets, photos, videos, memes, songs, or digital artwork. Today, creators worldwide can trade their assets, their original works, and, being on the blockchain, the buying process is decentralized, and both the seller and the buyer can guarantee the authenticity of the item.

To create an NFT , you first need to choose the blockchain you'll use. The open-source platform Ethereum is the most widely used cryptocurrency for payments today. In fact, opensea.io , one of the most popular sites for buying and selling NFTs, specifies that to access its marketplace , you need an ETH (Ethereum) wallet . They recommend using the MetaMask wallet.

NFT Frenzy

Sophia, the humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics, draws on a sheet of paper before auctioning her own NFT artwork in Hong Kong. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Meanwhile, the Canadian band The Weeknd announced a few days ago that they will release a song as an NFT. Previously, Kings of Leon became the first band to release their latest album as a non-fungible asset, and the artist Grimes (partner of billionaire Elon Musk, who is also testing this technology) sold a collection of NFTs for approximately $6 million.

On the other hand, technology journalist Kevin Roose of The New York Times recently sold a column about NFTs for more than half a million dollars, in exchange for 350 units of the cryptocurrency Ether.

Last week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold a digital version of his first tweet for over $2,9 million after an auction that lasted more than two weeks. Around the same time, American artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple , was also selling a digital artwork for just over $69 million at Christie's auction house.

The examples continue, reaching even the most unusual places. The humanoid robot Sophia , developed by Hanson Robotics, has produced a work of art using artificial intelligence and recently sold its NFT at auction in Hong Kong.

And everything indicates that this is just the beginning.

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Author Julieta Schulkin – March 29, 2021
This article was originally published in https://speckyboy.com/wordpress-myths-debunked/.