Apr 24, 2021
NFT’s, another buzzword, or the future of digital creation?
In the middle of February 2021, our world had not fully recovered from the pandemic and its economic impact, when a guy named Chriss Torres, original creator of Nyan cat meme from 2011 ,sold it in the form of digital art known as NFT(Non-Fungible Tokens) for nearly $600,000 and the internet was set ablaze with a new term.
Now, you might be wondering what the NFT really is and why it’s so popular since then but before we know about NFT, it’s very important to first understand the meaning and the difference between Fungible and Non-Fungible. Fungible means any item which can be interchanged with another item of equal worth for example I can interchange my ₹100 note with another ₹100 note or with two ₹50 notes. However, in Non-Fungible assets, you cannot interchange things like this as each and every item exhibit some unique properties which make it different from other items. For example, you cannot interchange the Mona Lisa painting with The Last Supper painting even if both of them are of equal worth monetarily because both of the paintings exhibit some unique qualities(made by different creators, different historical significance, and different colors). In short, NFT’s are digital non-fungible items that are stored on blockchain which certifies them to be unique and therefore they are non-interchangable . NFT’s can be any digital items such as your digital art, music, videos, or items in video games(such as character skin, outfit, or weapons). Even you can also create your own NFT and trade it through Ethereum Blockchain Network.
However, NFT as a concept is not something which is new . It has been around since 2017 when a game based on Ethereum Blockchain Network named CryptoKitties was launched in which players can purchase, collect, breed and sell virtual cats. However back then it was not as mainstream as it is now in 2021 .
As with other things going around in the world this thing was also not able to escape from the web of controversies. NFT’s are receiving a staunch opposition from environmental activist around the world regarding the issues with carbon footprint and it’s effect on climate as they can be bought through cryptocurrencies only and mining them takes enormous amount of computation power which in turn make it to consume high amount of electricity and also generate high amount of heat in that process.
Many people are saying that NFT’s are just another bubble which will burst soon. It may be true but the technology which powers it is blockchain and in my opinion it is certainly not and have many uses in our day to day life .
I will recommend you to read this article which tells you about the origination and brief history of NFT .
Thank you for reading :).
