NFT Firearms aka “Digital Guns” — The blockchain’s potential for the gun community
Before I won the History Channel’s Top Shot Season 4 competition in 2012, I was a technologist working at Google. Landing a job at Google was a dream come true, and I am thankful for that first job and how it put me on a trajectory where my tech world and gun worlds collide.
I am still a technologist and am excited to share a series of short articles on why the blockchain has tremendous potential for the gun community.
This article is not going to go into the nuts and bolts of the blockchain, but here is a good background article if you’re interested.
In the first article of this series, I want to discuss the potential of NFTs (pronounced N-F-T, as well as “nifty”). You might have heard of NFTs, or maybe not. Either way, buckle up to get your learn on and hear about the next generation of the gun community.
NFT stands for “non fungible tokens” which is pretty dense. Just think of an NFT as a digital collectible. The most basic explanation of an NFT is that it’s a digital good that lives on the blockchain. The digital good can range from a tweet (Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million dollars), to a video (the infamous “Charlie Bit My Finger” YouTube video sold as an NFT for $760,000), to a JPG, a meme or other digital file. That digital file could be a GIF of a gun.
I believe there is a huge market for digital guns, in the form of NFTs.
So what’s the big deal about digital goods and are they just as “real” as analog goods? One way I’ve wrapped my head around the concept of NFTs is to look at the analog version of collectables. Let’s take an example of purchasing a firearm. You go to the gun store or a private seller, money usually exchanges hands and then the firearm transfers from one owner to the other. Congratulations, you then have a physical firearm to add to your gun safe.
In the digital version of this, let’s say a manufacturer like Glock sells an NFT edition of the Glock 17 on an NFT marketplace. You purchase an NFT version of a Glock 17 and you store it in your digital wallet (there are many digital wallet providers out there) alongside your cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum, and other digital items such as NFT artwork, clothing (aka skins), CryptoKitties, Ape Punks, etc. As a collector, you then keep an eye out for all of your favorite firearms from manufacturers across the spectrum and build your NFT gun collection.
Just like physical collectors cards, NFTs can be bought, sold, traded or bartered. One huge success is NBA’s “Top Shot” NFTs which have sold over $700 million in less than a year. Imagine this for NFT guns.
The provenance of the NFT is really important. It needs to have some level of authority and authenticity that either comes from the brand owner (in this example, Glock) or via a third-party that has an agreement with Glock. Otherwise, why couldn’t anyone just take a picture of a Glock and sell that JPG as an NFT? Short answer is that anyone can, but an NFT Glock from some random netizen won’t have as much value as a “real” NFT authenticated by Glock.
Here’s where things can get very interesting. Let’s say Glock partners with one of your favorite video games where you can actually shoot your G17 NFT in the game. Perhaps this G17 NFT will give you extra hit points or expanded magazine capacity compared to stock guns in the game, or the NFT can open up extra game features. All of your game performance and history can be tied to your specific NFT gun(s). There’s also inherent value of taking your NFT guns into other games as well as other parts of the metaverse.
None of this exists today, but I believe the firearms industry will absolutely head in this direction with NFTs.
Another cool part about NFTs is a component called a “smart contract”. The smart contract ties financial royalties to the NFT owner. As an example, if someone purchases a Glock 17 NFT for $50, s/he can resell that G17 NFT for $100 or whatever the open market will bear. Glock could also receive residual royalties on all future sales. This is is a key differentiator compared to the analog world. Once a firearm is sold by a manufacturer, they will never see another cent of future sales from that specific gun. Not so with NFTs, where each time an NFT is re-sold, a smart contract could enforce and execute a royalty structure.
A massive NFT marketplace already exists where billions of dollars worth of NFTs are changing hands. I have full confidence that NFT firearms will eventually compose a significant part of the NFT marketplace. I am currently in consultative conversations with major firearms manufacturers to bring them into the NFT world. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to make this all a reality.
This post is designed to be a shorter read and provoke some meaningful discussion. Some of the ideas I’m presenting in this multi-part series are not fully baked, and they aren’t meant to be. I encourage sharing these articles to broaden the discussion and engagement so that the ideas can be brought to market.
Come back in a few days, when I’ll be announcing an exciting first-of-its-kind NFT auction that I’m running with a major brand in the firearms industry.
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Contact: info@TopShotChris.com
