The latest big trend in the tech space has come from the entry in the Ethereum blockchain for something called NFT’s – whilst the concept is quite simple in theory, the practical application can be a little more complicated as things around the NFT market aren’t as clear cut as some would believe. With cryptos continuing to grow in popularity over the past few years, particularly in different online markets as services like USA online casinos often use crypto as a payment option – but what are the NFT’s all about in the crypto market?
It stands for ‘non-fungible token’, something that is considered to be unique – an easy analogy to explain the way these works are to think of a $1 bill and unique trading card. You can trade a $1 bill for another, and you’ll end up with the same item of the same value, the $1 bill is a fungible item. A rare playing card however, if you trade one for another, you’ll end up with something completely different with a different value, the item is unique and therefore non-fungible. NFT’s take this concept and move it to an online platform allowing for digital items to be traded and shared, but that’s also where things become a little more difficult.
(Image from wersm.com)
Big sales have already been made for upcoming content creator events, or for artworks that have been popular in the media before with GIF’s like Nyan Cat, but that’s also where the complication comes in – the sale of the NFT suggests that the owner has the rights to the original piece, they can add it to their own NFT wallet for safekeeping and to be traded or sold later on but given it’s such a new market there’s a lot that is yet to be figured out – how does the whole ownership side of things really work, how is it verifiable, and what’s the collection side of things all about anyway?
Given it’s so new it all remains up in the air, but it’s certainly gaining a lot of steam as some big names are getting onboard and pulling in huge figures for doing so – many others will certainly look to follow seeing the early success but it does add a lot of confusion to the whole market, particularly where value is concerned – a new album release for example has a certain value, but with the prospect of the NFT sale pushing the value higher in some regard changes things. If it sounds complicated, that’s probably because it is a little more than it needs to be.