Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1399888
j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 1 c g w 6 1 replace or be replaced by another identical item — for instance, if I have two $1 bills in my wallet, they are the same; it doesn't matter which one I give you. Likewise, a Bitcoin. However, non-fungible means it's unique. So, a non-fungible token is a token that is attached to something totally unique, something that doesn't exist anywhere else, as opposed to something that is duplicated. That's the whole point of NFTs. This all came about because in the DeFi (decentralized finance) world when Bitcoins surfaced, they could only be used for currency. That's how Bitcoin was invented. But now there are hundreds of blockchains that can do far more. Ethereum (with its own cryptocurrency called ether) allows you to attach other things to the blockchain, including something called a smart contract. The smart contract — a piece of code that executes an agreement and is stored on the blockchain — is attached to an NFT and basically means it is a unique thing and can be attached to a token. When you think about something that is unique, you naturally think about art. So, that's how art started to become part of the NFT world. People really into cryptocurren- cy and the crypto world began buying and selling art in this way. So, it's a way of attaching digital content to a token, to something that can be toke- nized. In terms of what that means for the art world, that's a whole other part of it. Are NFTs always associated with cryptocurrency? Anyone can make anything that represents something. But, an NFT is something that became unique in the crypto world. And, its popularity is specifically centered around these ideas of smart contracts, because smart contracts change how you think about what is on the blockchain. When did NFTs really start becoming popular? People have been selling NFTs for a while. What captured everyone's attention is when Beeple sold his piece for $69 million. That's when everyone started to pay attention to the market. January-February 2021 is when the big boom started happening. Beeple is famous in the same way that Banksy is famous. He creates the lure of the story, which is more important than the art, and he's very good at that. Successful artists are always about the narrative that goes with the art. By the way, he is the third richest artist in the world now. (Beeple is launching an NFT platform, called WENEW, that'll sell "iconic" moments in time pertain- ing to artists, athletes, and more.) But, NFTs have been around for much longer than this? Yes. For example, the SuperRare market- place has been around for a couple of years, but not many people knew about it back then. It didn't really explode until the begin- ning of this year. And then, everyone tried to get involved. Interestingly, the only people who were involved before that were artists who were also into cryptocurrency. But now, all artists are interested in them because they feel like they're missing out on something. A lot of people who weren't following crypto or DeFi are now following that and buying crypto- currency, which is why the price was going up. Actually, it's going down now because of over-supply of goods. How can digital artists capitalize on this trend? Well, that's the thing. You have to be careful, as capitalizing on it is a risky business. The first thing I would recommend an artist do is find the right market to sell their goods, and right now, there's a supply-and-demand problem. If there is too much supply, which is where we are now, there won't be enough demand, and therefore the prices will go down. Right now, everyone thinks they're just going to make a bunch of NFTs and ev- eryone's going to make a lot of money. And that's not the case. First, you have to pay attention to the market and find out what's going on. Artists need to become somewhat economy wise. You also have to ask yourself why someone would want to buy your art. They're going to want to buy your art because they want to collect things, just like anyone buying any other type of art. Artists who have better market share are those who are famous or have a following. The same rules apply in the NFT market. A word of caution: Don't flood the market with NFTs because that brings down the value of all NFTs. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files. NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger called a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique and, therefore, not interchangeable. — Wikipedia Access to any copy of the original file, however, is not restricted to the buyer of the NFT. While copies of these digital items are available for anyone to obtain, NFTs are tracked on blockchains to provide the owner with a proof of ownership that is separate from copyright.