Did you ever collect cards in your childhood? Remember there were always cards that were special and rare, and everyone knew they were more valuable than the other cards. These cards were non-fungible items, meaning we socially recognised they couldn’t be interchanged with any other card as a result of their uniqueness. Basically NFTs are crypto assets in the form of images, videos and music. When given a Non-Fungible Token(NFT) on the blockchain, your image becomes uniquely recognisable and could be seen as valuable and traded on the internet.
Internet Asset Ownership
Consider this, before NFT’s it wasn’t really possible to directly own something on the internet, aside from domain names. Most data that you find on a website is owned by the company who owns that website, for example your facebook information is owned by Meta (formally known as the Facebook company). NFTs open the space for personal ownership on the internet which will eventually allow you to carry unique digital items across many online experiences like social media and gaming.
For example when the space evolves to maturity you might be able to buy a football that has been digitally signed by your favourite player, and use that specific ball as your picture on Twitter, or as the ball in your latest FIFA video game. Now it’s not just a picture of a football, it’s the signed football. The value of these items is determined socially by the free market, which is constantly fluctuating like international exchange rates. This makes the space vibrant and novel, but also susceptible to a lot of volatility in prices.
Although the technology has been around for a few years, in 2020 the social recognition of NFTs has heated up with rapid purchase of the CryptoPunks collection; a set of pixelated digital art images that have individually been frequently valued in the millions of dollars. Well known brands have gotten involved recently with the likes of Disney, Nike and even musicians such as Eminem and Kings of Leon creating their own collections ready to be offered up as a digital buffet.
Into The Metaverse
The crypto ecosystem is still young but innovations like NFTs are a precursor for what some see as the next phase of the internet. The metaverse or what some refer to as web 3.0 is slowly being built which will integrate virtual and augmented reality, crypto assets, and social identity. Rather than being built by a company, Web 3.0 describes where our collective advancement in these technologies is taking us as a culture.
~Novel Serialisation: Heavens Fire~
For example, recently a music concert was held entirely on the internet in the virtual space of the video game Fortnite. Ariana Grande held her Rift Tour for her fans to enjoy in the video game. And she’s not the only one, Travis Scott also held his recent Astronomical Tour in Fortnite highlighting the growing success of this medium. Someday soon you could imagine buying fan gear from a virtual concert as NFTs and wearing them to a different concert, where their origin could be recognised by your friends. You could then sell the gear to someone else as an authentic item from one of the first virtual music concerts.
So the next generation of kids could play their trading cards in a virtual world, and sell them as NFTs for money that they can use to buy virtual clothing for their augmented reality school experience. The online world is becoming ready for a more dynamic social life, how will you show off your digital identity in the future?
By Robert Blasetti
About the author
Robert Blasetti is an experienced technology consultant, he has had software development roles across banking and finance. He now makes educational modules on decentralised finance and cryptocurrency for his business Unity Crypto Consulting. Find out more @unitycrypto on Instagram.
