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 that a NFT It has been sold. It's one of the acronyms of the moment and in Spanish it translates as non-fungible token, that is to say a digital asset that is granted a kind of “certificate of authenticity”. Es only world cybernetic.

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 would happen 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.

El NFT It gives a kind of feeling of ownership to a digital asset, which can be a song, a video of the NBA or  TweetThe non-fungible token is registered, with a unique string of characters (numbers, letters and symbols) that represent it on the blockchain, that unalterable “ledger”.

A good is considered non-fungible when it does not wear out from use and is also unique, since it cannot be replaced by another identical one. Blockchain technology uses systems that allow the creation of unique digital identifiers for exchange. This means we could all create our own NFTs (although that doesn't guarantee anyone will buy them).

Can be created NFTs of all kinds of digital elements, from tweets, photos, videos, memes, songs, or digital artwork. Today, creators around the world can market 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 the NFTFirst, you need to choose which blockchain to use. The open-source platform Ethereum is the most widely used cryptocurrency for payments today. Indeed, the site opensea.io, one of the most used for buying and selling NFTs, specifies that to access its marketplace it is necessary to have a wallet (a virtual wallet) of ETH (Ethereum) to use their service. 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 musical group The Weeknd He announced a few days ago that he will release a song as NFT. Before, 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) was selling a collection of NFTs for approximately USD 6 million.

On the other hand, the technology journalist Kevin Roose, de The New York Times has sold a few days ago column on NFT for more than half a million dollars, for 350 units of the cryptocurrency Ether.

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

The examples continue, reaching even the most unusual places. The humanoid robot SophiaDeveloped by Hanson Robotics, it has produced a work of art, based on artificial intelligence, and days ago, it 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/.