This will be a continuing series in which I’ll attempt to drill down on each category for DERO dARCH Event 1 in a little bit of a deep dive to explain why the category exists, what it’s purpose is and how it is important. In this article I’ll be touching on Non-Fungible Assets (NFAs) and explaining a bit of the purpose of the category.
Now NFAs are not just JPEGs attached to a blockchain, NFAs can be many things. NFAs can be used for authentication, in games items for video games, proof of ownership for real world property or even as tool within the Internet of Things such as a key to open a door. Now, there’s a little bit of an extra benefit to these things when used with the DERO blockchain. You can actually prove that you are the owner of this NFA without revealing anything else about yourself. Since these assets move from wallet to wallet just like the underlying DERO, they receive all of the same benefits of Homomorphic Encryption and move privately. Your wallet balance and anything else you own isn’t revealed. As soon as a token is in a wallet it can be transmitted anywhere completely anonymously, just like cash.
The truth about Non-Fungible Assets is that they are much more than a way to speculate on digital art. They can be useful things that bring functionality to the blockchain or even increase security on existing items. Not to mention when you have a layer 1 fungible chain, the ability to sometimes utilize something that is non-fungible can come in handy.
For example, remember when there were people hacking cars and turning them off on the highway or other nefarious acts? What if that car used proof of ownership via an NFA and would only respond to commands on whether or not to start or stop functionality after the owner authorized use of it’s core functions? A car could theoretically only respond to local commands from a terminal or controller that provided proof that it was being operated by the true owner.
Of course there are other ways of accomplishing this and it’s just a hypothetical but it just goes to show that NFAs can be much more than pictures of monkeys or AI generated art. When used with some creativity an NFA could unlock a door, allow you to pickup an order, give you access to a website, give you ownership of a real world investment or even prove that you aren’t a robot to a skeptical neighbor. Using this technology for the sole purpose of speculating on the future value of a fixed set of pixels seems like it could be a waste of a new and innovative technology.
So, the next time you look at a shiny new NFT on opensea you may want to consider one question, “Is this the best thing that can be done with this technology and should it be executed without also protecting my privacy?”
