Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1399888
62 cgw j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 1 Aer you find somewhere to host your art, then you will need a digital wallet and will also need to buy cryptocurrency, because that's how everything is exchanged. And cryptocurrency is extremely volatile. You really need to become savvy in cryptocur- rency, and that's a complicated world. So now, let's say you have a piece of art you want to put on the market. You'll have to do something called "minting the NFT," meaning you're adding your NFT to the blockchain. Currently, that costs money, and that money can fluctuate drastically, anywhere from $40 to $300, depending on what the "gas price" is — not actual gasoline, but how much energy is used for creating the NFT. That is done through crypto mining, which is very controversial. Right now, especially in the Ethereum world, a system is used to verify the block on a blockchain, called "proof of work," and it involves a lot of people using a lot of computer power to mint the NFT. It's a little complicated how that's created, but basically it's a bunch of computers using a lot of energy. Some people are not very happy about that because it's not very green, and current blockchain technology is definitely not energy-efficient, or efficient in general. Ethereum is testing a new system called "proof of stake," and that would drastically change the way blocks are minted, using very little energy. What makes an NFT so desirable? What makes anything popular? It's about collecting things; you want to be part of col- lecting something that's special and unique. People collect baseballs from famous home runs, for example. In the end, it's really just a baseball you're talking about, but it has more value because it is associated with something. The same thing is happening with memes in the sense that people re- member those memes; they're an important part of Internet history of some sort. So, they have value. People who are making a lot of money in the DeFi world are young — 30 years old or younger. They would rather own a meme than a Rembrandt. So, can anyone sell an NFT? What about artistic ownership? There is nothing stopping me from taking something that someone else did and mak- ing it an NFT. Someone asked Beeple, can I take one of your images and mint it as an NFT non-fungible token digital blockchain crypto world carbon footprint one- of-a- kind unique cryptocurrency ownership ether digital asset digital art Ethereum artist token