NFTs have taken the world by storm attracting the masses outside the hardcore crypto enthusiasts. What is all the fuss about anyway? Can’t you just right-click and save the artwork anyways?
Investors, celebrities, artists, and collectors are flocking to this new marketplace. Despite it’s name, you’ll find tons of fun in the non-fungible token space. Don’t let the technicalities of cryptocurrency scare you off. Anyone with basic computer skills and a vivid imagination can mint an NFT.
Putting the Fun in Fungibility
Before we crack open the NFT egg, let’s first dissect what fungibility is in the first place. Fungibility means being able to interchange goods or assets of the same type. A prime example of this is fiat (USD) currency. When you exchange a dollar for a dollar, there is no inherent difference between them, right? Bitcoin is also fungible as every satoshi is the same as the last.
What are some examples of non-fungible assets in the real world? Real estate, used cars, and clothing could all be viewed as non-fungible assets.
WTF Is an NFT?
The traditional art space is about ownership and rarity. By proving you own a rare item, you…(get bragging rights?). With blockchain technology, owning and authenticating rare digitized assets bridges the traditional art world seamlessly with the new.
How Do NFTs Work?
Token standards are used by an NFT which establishes the uniqueness of said token. Two NFTs may appear to be the exact same, but when you look under the hood at their attributes, you’ll see they are indeed non-fungible.
Thanks to the immutability and transparency of the blockchain, anyone can trace the creation of an NFT with a timestamp and nothing can be tampered with or manipulated. You will also be able to see who the original creator is, who the current owner is when it changed hands (wallets), and other unique identifiers.
When you own an NFT, you actually own it and can prove it via the blockchain. You are free to do what you want with it too. This means you can hold it, flip it, or put it on your wall. If you’re a creator, you’ll be able to show that you are the true creator (minter). Aside from this, you’ll be able to set the scarcity and even earn royalties for each transaction. This is an excellent passive income strategy. Put it on an NFT marketplace or sell it peer-to-peer (p2p).
How Are NFTs Used?
NFTs are all about the preservation and ownership of digital assets. NFTs can come in the form of illustration, music, videos, memes, audio, generative art, etc. There is no limit to what you can create and mint.
One benefit of utilizing blockchain over the traditional art space is evading intermediaries. You won’t have to concern yourself with marketing and worry about fees as you normally would. Most of what you make from your NFTs is yours to keep.
Benefits of Being an NFT Collector
In the traditional collector space, you have to worry about things like counterfeits and preserving ownership. While this is still possible in the NFT space, you can prove provenance, authenticity, and ownership via the blockchain. By pulling up your wallet, you can easily show others your NFT collection and increase your bragging rights.
Time to Create an NFT?
If you’re looking to gain more control over your intellectual property and art, minting NFTs is the solution for you. You can think of NFTs as a way to enter an unregulated global network of art to collect. This levels the playing field in a decentralized fashion allowing you to own, buy, and sell digital artwork.
Artists normally publish their work via social media for exposure. While this does allow for more eyeballs on their work, it’s not necessarily an elegant solution for returns. In some ways, all it does is gain traffic for tech giants like Instagram.
The economic landscape and marketplace have shifted for the good with NFTs. Full ownership is held by the artist and the collector alike. Fair compensation is rewarded to the artist as well rather than a 3rd party getting the way. Scarcity is also a wonderful way for artists to reap the rewards.
Minting an NFT
There are plenty of platforms to mint NFTs these days. These include Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, WAX, Tezos, and EOS.
Read our next guide to learn how to mint on Ethereum.
Learn Solidity Course
Solidity is the programming language of the future.
It gives you the rare and sought-after superpower to program against the “Internet Computer”, i.e., against decentralized Blockchains such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum Classic, Tron, and Avalanche – to mention just a few Blockchain infrastructures that support Solidity.
In particular, Solidity allows you to create smart contracts, i.e., pieces of code that automatically execute on specific conditions in a completely decentralized environment. For example, smart contracts empower you to create your own decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that run on Blockchains without being subject to centralized control.
NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, and Blockchain-based games are all based on smart contracts.
This course is a simple, low-friction introduction to creating your first smart contract using the Remix IDE on the Ethereum testnet – without fluff, significant upfront costs to purchase ETH, or unnecessary complexity.
