NFTs or Non Fungible Token is a hot topic nowadays. Every second person is talking about NFT. After some famous people have put their shoes into this world and some NFT are sold at exorbitant prices every person wants to explore this field. NFT has enabled people to look at the artistic value of art whether it’s in the form of cartoons, painting, music, videos, GIFs and games etc. They are also trying to create an amazing earning opportunity for future generations. NFTs are gaining too much popularity and there is too much hype in the market because this technology introduced a popular way to buy or sell digital arts. So let’s begin the adventure of NFT.
What is NFT?
As mentioned earlier NFT stands for Non fungible tokens. Let’s understand this term, Non fungible simple means unique. NFTs are digital art or assets that bel0ngs to real-life objects like games, music, images, audio, and video etc. These digital arts can be buy or sell using blockchain technology. They are non Fungible which makes them different from cryptocurrency though they are bought and sold on a specified platform just like cryptocurrency. They have unique identification codes and metadate. Every NFT is unique and can’t be traded at equivalency.
NFT holds a vast variety but they are mostly centred around art, videos, audios and sports cards.
Key Points
- NFT is currently in hype because of digital artists. NFT helps to tokenize the value of art,real estate, etc.
- They are unique tokens on block chain technology that can’t be duplicated.
- NFT allows individuals to represent their property rights, identities and the real value of art.
- At last NFt is cutting out intermediaries, simplifying the transaction and creating new markets and hopes.
History of Non Fungible Token
The story of NFT started in 2014 but was not able to attract that much crowd that time. But awareness started back in 2017 from there it is unstoppable with various celebrities now investing in this technology.
2014: First NFT that came into the market was Quantum invented by Kevin McCoy and Anil dash. In this a video was registered on Namecoin blockchain and sold for $4 from there the journey started.
2015: First NFT Project name called Etheria was launched and NFT was evolved from ERC-721 standard. It went with various ups and downs but later various NFT projects were launched like curio, cards, crypto cranks etc.
2017: Public attention was drawn into NFT with the game crypto kitties in which tradeable cat NFTs Were sold.
2020: It can be said to be a golden period as there was a sudden rise in the NFT market upto $250 millions.
2021: The rise went on by making a record of $300 millions after high profile sales and auctions etc.
2022: This is the year of NFTs and people believed that this will give them a lots of opportunity to grow.
How does NFT work?
NFT tokens are completely unique and not divisible, maintaining one’s identity. NFT enables one to claim ownership over a unique piece of art or video games or real estate etc. which can also be tracked using Ethereum blockchain.
It is safe because of Limited ownership as there can be one owner at a time. Ownership is maintained through a uniqueID and makes sure that no other token is duplicated. Smart contracts (Defi) is used to manage ownership and transferability of NFT.
When a NFT is created, smart contracts conform to different standards by the execute code than this information is added into blockchain. This is the minting process which includes:
- Creation of new blocks
- Confirming the information
- Adding that information into blockchain
Use Cases of NFTs:
Many people belived that they are useless, why people are spending a big amount on digital arts. While few NFTs are not worthy but still there are many NFTs in the market with a use case. Most popular NFTs have big community behind it which created so much hype among people to sell their digital assests. For instance: Many NFTs community promises nft holders to give them airdops, royality, their name and will involve them their future projects. Other example is, if a company has created their NFT then they can give offer of some discount for the people who hold their NFTs. Some other Use Cases are mentioned below:
Also Read: Top 5 NFT Gaming – Play to Earn
Digital Art
Whenever NFT is mentioned we can’t miss digital art. It is the most common use of NFT and various high profile auctions are made through it. ” Merge” by Pak emerged to be the most expensive NFT continuing the lead was
Everydays: The first 5000 days by Mike Winkleman emerged out to be the second expensive one.
Some famous Arts were Cryptopunks, Generative art.
Video Games
Though it’s quite tricky, NFT is also used in games; it represents assets like the plot of the game where other game developers can control the game apart from the original developer .
Crypto Kitties was one such successful game, where virtual cats were traded and adopted. The hype was maintained in 2018 by Axie infinity an NFT based online game. Then the NFT has evolved around the gaming industry though with some arguments and criticism .
Music
Artists selling artwork and music as NFT tokens were used with $25 millions generated from the music industry.
3Lau sold a collection of 33 NFT worth $11.7 million. Kings of Leon used NFT to promote his album When you see yourself .
Other musicians affiliated with NFT are Lil pump, Grimes, Eminem etc.
Flims
It’s the most obvious use of NFT like the digital poster of Deadpool 2. However the first movie to be auctioned on NFT was Claude Lanzmann. Various anticipated projects were launched in 2021 on NFT like the Godzilla vs kong,zero contact , Triumph.
These were famous fields apart from these a lot of industries are turning towards NFT like tickets of real events, signatures, legal documents etc. A lot more to come
Some high profile shots on NFT
Jack Dorsey tweeted a link of his first tweet where he wrote” just setting up my twttr” bid up to $ 2.5 million.
Paris Hilton sold his collection on NFT for millions of dollars.
Amitabh Bachchan used NFT where he selled various poems, pictures and autographs.
Ellen DeGeneres uses NFT to auction her explanation of NFT on the Ellen show and physically drawn picture of a cat and it was selled in $33,495.
Shawn Mendes the singer collaborated with Genies to sell unique wearables and earned upto $600,000 .
There are various celebrities who also joined the trend. The list is never-ending.
How to create NFT?
As everyone is curious to know about this field, the demand of the artist is also increasing. Many people hae good idea about arts and they are using theor talent to create NFTs. NFT can be created by using software like photoshop, Adobe, Blender. If you have any idea about arts you can create on your own orelse thery are many NFT artist. You can contact them to make one unique creature for you.
NFT Platforms
Opensea : There are specialised platforms for selling and buying of NFT and one of them, the highly acclaimed is opensea.
It is not necessary that the assets be transferred in a physical way. Let’s say you bought a digital painting but it is not necessary that you might get that painting instead of that you might get a certificate of ownership which is kept in a wallet.
Wallets must be filled with cryptocurrency as NFT are digital contracts.
How to buy NFT?
Though buying a NFT is not a complicated process, there are some points that one needs to remember.
To buy a NFT one needs to have access to a digital wallet to store NFT.
But holding a wallet doesn’t mean everything you need to have cryptocurrency and ETH( Ethereum) is the widely accepted crypto by NFT providers.
After that you can go various NFT platforms to buy NFT like:
Opensea: An open platform with different categories of art available on it.
Rarible: It is also an open marketplace where one can easily buy an NFT. You can even create a NFT on it to sell .
Apart from these there are various platforms like Nifty Gateway, superrare, Axie, Bakery Swap etc.
How to sell a NFT?
There are two prominent ways for selling a NFT: either you own it. Or you can mint an NFT from sites like opensea or WazirX nft platform after the minting process you can list the NFT on any site .
The first thing included is to mint your artwork, turning your artwork into NFT. Most payments are acceptable in cryptocurrency so you need to have some cryptocurrency in your wallet. There are various platforms from where you can buy cryptocurrency like Bitcoin , Ethereum.
The second thing is to have a digital wallet which needs to be connected to the NFT platform mentioned above.
After you have connected your wallet with the NFT platform you can start the sale and purchase.
After connecting and uploading the artwork on the platform which you want to turn into NFT then the auction process for the NFT will start, the auction will continue till you accept one bid.
You can even add listing fees and descriptions to your NFT.
Various Benefits
You might think about the importance of NFT, like why should I invest in it. It’s just a hype but my dear readers it has great real advantages, let’s have a look together.
1. Decentralized network: NFT removes intermediaries like agents; the seller and buyer can directly contact each other regarding the artwork. This also benefits the seller as now they don’t need to pay commission to a third person.
2. Unique: It is one of the best features of NFT; only unique and rare art exists as NFT can’t be replicated.
3. Copyright: Artwork is completely original and not forged and it also allows both the participants to retain the original copyright of the item.
4. Safe: It uses blockchain technology with different nodes where the database is secured and there is always an identical record of data.
These are just some points the list is never-ending .
Final Thought…
It’s a newly released technology that has created a buzz in the market. Though it is a double edged sword with some disadvantages, but it’s advantages are so much that those disadvantages disappear. It is a technology which also helps in promoting culture and lost art with various job opportunities and a promising future.
FAQ’s
Ques1. Is NFT and crypto the same?
Ans. No they are not it’s mentioned above but again brushing up the point NFT are not Fungible while crypto are Fungible.
Ques 2. Is NFT completely safe?
Ans. It’s an evolving technology with highmost security though there are various loopholes like art scams but various platforms are working on it.
Ques 3. How to start with NFT?
Ans. Create crypto wallet, chose NFT platform, explore some NFTs, add some money in your wallet and upload your first NFT to sell.
