Unique digital collectibles
NFT, standing for Non Fungible Tokens, are unique digital collectibles that are unable to be replicated because stored on a decentralized blockchain such as Ethereum. Each item is totally exclusive to its owner and cannot be duplicated or deleted.
I heard about NFT for the first time on a newsletter about digital art. After digging a bit on this, I discover a whole new usage of the blockchain technology, entirely dedicated to art and collectibles.
NFT is solving some of the toughest problems for art in the digital era which are : the non uniqueness and the ownership of art pieces.
The non-fungible aspect is what make NFT so interesting, in opposition to fiat cash. Fiat cash and cryptocurrencies are fungible as they’re totaly interchangeable : 5€ bill is interchangeable with any other 5€ bill, just like 1 BTC is interchangeable for 1 BTC.
The act of creating an NFT is call “Mint”. To tokenize an asset you need to bring the file to a minting platform like OpenSea, Rarible or Mintbase. They’re all working on Ethereum, and you need to have a specific ERC721 or ERC1155 wallet to record the file. This will cost some ETH, so the price you pay for minting a piece is highly fluctuable.
Usages
From : Complete guide to NFTs
- Digital art (SuperRare, KnownOrigin, Async Art, Rarible, etc.)
- Digital music (Mintbase, InfiNFT, etc.)
- Virtual real estate (Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, etc.)
- VR wearables
- Gaming assets (Axie Infinity, Sorare, Gods Unchained, etc.)
- Event tickets / Attendance receipts
- Subscription badges
- Blockchain domain names (Ethereum Name Service, Unstoppable Domains, etc.)
- Tokenized luxury goods, e.g. wine
- Tokenized insurance policies (yEarn’s yInsure tokens, etc.)
Links
About
- Nifties - Blog on diigtal art
- NFT Wikipedia
- What are NFT - Ledger
- Non Fungible Tokens may become the trendsetter in the industry
- The Defiant guide to Digital Art
- $170 000 Digital Artwork sold
- TEDx - What is the future of Art on Blockchain
Marketplaces
- Rarible - First community-owned NFT marketplace
- Terra Virtua - Immersive digital collectible platform
- OpenSea - Largest marketplace for rare items
- CryptoKitties - Collect and breed furrever friends