What is a Nun-Fungible Token (NFT) and Why Does it Matter?
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are not exactly new (the first was made and sold just over 5 years ago), but they are becoming mainstream (check out these pieces from the NY Times, Forbes, and Vice). As they grow in popularity, their potential impact on digital art is increasing.
An NFT is a digital certificate of authenticity. This is a way of verifying ownership of a piece of digital art. Let’s use the Mona Lisa as an example. There are tens of thousands, if not millions, of replicas of the Mona Lisa, both physically and digitally. However, there is only one owner—in this case, it’s the French Republic—of the original Mona Lisa in The Louvre in Paris. When you mint a piece of art (photo, film clip, song, etc.) and it becomes a NFT, you have given that piece of digital art a certificate of authenticity that only one person can ever own. While there might be several thousand copies of your film clip or photo out on the internet, there is only ever one owner, and the owner owns the original—and, in the case of digital art, only one person who owns the certificate of authenticity.
That said, an NFT for a piece of art does not always need to be limited to one. The original owner of the digital art can sell as many “certificates of authenticity” (remember, this is essentially what an NFT is) as he or she wants. These certify that a digital copy of the content was obtained legally, and they are only available to original purchasers. During the minting process, you can set the quantity of NFTs to whatever you like, so if you’re the Ikea of digital art, then you’d make 100,000 NFTs for one piece of art. There are countless opportunities and possibilities with this technology that runs on the blockchain.
So, why does it matter? Imagine you’re a musician and that you want to interact with your fans who purchased your first album 10 years ago. NFT technology makes that possible. If each sale of this album included a token for the original purchaser, you now have a way of verifying who was an original purchaser of that first album. Now the musician has a way of interacting with all of his or her original fans and could use that connection to give them exclusive new unreleased content or first invites to upcoming concerts, etc.
Air France is set to trial a blockchain-based system to verify Covid tests for passengers.
This is not a comprehensive treatment of NFT’s or blockchain technology, but I hope it has piqued your interest into this technology that could change the way we do digital transactions in the future. If you found this interesting or helpful, let me know in the comments down below.
Check out my first NFT titled Whittle Roundabout Takeoff.
Sir Frank Whittle developed some of the world's first jet engines in Lutterworth, England. The Whittle roundabout sits at the entrance to town with a replica of his first jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39.
Animation: Simeon van den Bergh
SFX: John Poon
