Thereโs nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, โUmโฆ whatโs going on here?โ Thatโs the feeling Iโve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one. And by the time we all thought we sort of knew what the deal was, the founder of Twitter put an autographed tweet up for sale as an NFT.
You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?
After literal hours of reading, I think I know. I also think Iโm going to cry.
Okay, letโs start with the basics:
WHAT IS AN NFT? WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?
Non-fungible token.
That doesnโt make it any clearer.
Right, sorry. โNon-fungibleโ more or less means that itโs unique and canโt be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible โ trade one for another bitcoin , and youโll have exactly the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, youโd have something completely different. You gave up a Squirtle, and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls โthe Mona Lisa of baseball cards.โ (Iโll take their word for it.)
How do NFTs work?
At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin , but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs. (Some already have.)
Whatโs worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?
NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.
You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?
After literal hours of reading, I think I know. I also think Iโm going to cry.
Okay, letโs start with the basics:
WHAT IS AN NFT? WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?
Non-fungible token.
That doesnโt make it any clearer.
Right, sorry. โNon-fungibleโ more or less means that itโs unique and canโt be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible โ trade one for another bitcoin , and youโll have exactly the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, youโd have something completely different. You gave up a Squirtle, and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls โthe Mona Lisa of baseball cards.โ (Iโll take their word for it.)
How do NFTs work?
At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin , but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs. (Some already have.)
Whatโs worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?
NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.