My inbox, media feeds, and conversations with friends have been completely overtaken with talking about the least fungible of tokens. Here’s another article of NFTs.
Let’s talk about it some more. I am going to assume there is a base-level understanding of what NFTs are. At it’s core, my ‘elevator pitch’ for NFTs is that they are a way to make non-counterfitable art – whether that art is a document, a picture, or a song. I think that’s a fair enough oversimplified description, feel free to fight me on that.
Why is this impactful? Well, it’s impactful because it is by and large a much more effective way to transfer value, and to have something hold it’s value. I don’t know a whole bunch about the precious art collector industry, but I know it’s how a lot of super rich people invest their money, and there is an entire industry of people that verify the authenticity of art. Beyond that, the nature of NFTs showcases a mechanism for royalty payments to the originator of the art via contract.
I think that the recent media blitz on the subject of NFTs from names like Mark Cuban and Gary Vee is a good thing for the crypto community as a whole, although I worry that they are attracting the wrong people to the hobby. What I mean by that is, I worry that people will start making random NFTs and not really understand the costs associated with them (eth gas fees) among other things. I know at least one starving artist that spent hundreds of dollars they did not have minting some NFTs that aren’t really positioned within the community to be sold. This particular artist is under the assumption that some rich crypto billionaire will buy his art for a high price just because.
Like everything with crypto, it is not obvious to the casual observer what is a scam, what is possible, and how the market works. I know a lot of people who bought in on BTC at 17k only to sell at 3k. Whatever you do in life – crypto related or not – take time to think about your investments. Sleep on decisions. Logic is panic’s prey.