Mar 8
Shedding The Good About NFTs: They are not as bad as the Internet portrays them.
NFTs have been the rise of eyebrows since they are often described as digital assets that represent real-world objects like art, music, in-game items, and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.” — What Is An NFT? Non-Fungible Tokens Explained, Forbes Advisor
Vincent Doria, a self-employed investor, got hooked on collecting NFTs, creating his own website, making his own NFT collection, and giving all the donations to the truckers going out to Washington D.C.
But people also question NFTs and the adverse effects of NFTs and purchasing one. Vincent gives his side of the argument to these many discussions about NFTs, to at least spread some good around its name.
What makes NFTs exciting to everyone, especially you?
So what makes NFTs so exciting for me is the whole collector element. So I’m a big collector of baseball cards and video games. So that element of NFTs is very appealing to a lot of people. There are also these things called generative NFTs. So the generative collection allows you to make like 200 layers, and then you generate the NFT software on your computer, and it creates randomized images. But all these images will always be unique. Since they are different, you get a lot of perks to hold them.
You said that you collect NFTs as a collector, are other people the same, or is it just for money?
So, I enjoy collecting NFTs; however, if it weren’t for making money, it wouldn’t. If it weren’t for making the money element out of it, they wouldn’t have been a part of the space [nft community]. Most of it’s still the bottom line of a lot of people. In the crypt space as a whole, everyone always says, oh, they love the technology and everything, but there’s still the majority of people. If it weren’t for making the money element out of it, they wouldn’t have been a part of the space [nft community].
But you can get benefits from owning an NFT. You could go to real-life events and get into benefits if you own the right to an NFT. So, for instance, Board Ape Yacht Club, in New York City, had the strokes, which they rented out a warehouse and threw a big party, basically a Block Party. They rented catering, and all you have to do is if you own an NFT, you can go to that party for free. Drinks were free, and entertainment was free; basically, everything was free!
I see that people pay thousands of dollars for these NFTs for, as you said, for a collection of money use, but there’s a whole joke going around the Internet about NFTs that they are scams because people can easily screenshot it without paying a dime. What’s your take on that?
I can go to the Mona Lisa and take a picture of the Mona Lisa. It doesn’t mean that I have ownership of the Mona Lisa. You know, before, I wasn’t big on Twitter, but now, I’m big in the NFT community on Twitter. And you’ll always get those people that jump in your comments are like, “look at this nice NFT that I own,” and it’s your image. They’re just trolls, but you know, just like everything, you can’t take a picture of something and own it. But this is how ownership works; unfortunately, NFTs, you know, anything that has human interaction will have scams that will involve people stealing from you. So, to get ownership, it is called a smart contract. The smart contract is where the ownership is stored. And this is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. No one owns the blockchain, so the Ethereum blockchain wouldn’t go down if the United States lost power because thousands and thousands of nodes worldwide keep it secure and keep it going. So when you own an NFT, I physically don’t hold the code to it. My wallet is stored on the Ethereum blockchain as the owner.
Lastly, what’s your intake about the environmental issues surrounding NFTs?
So, here’s the thing about the environmental issue. Have you’ve seen how much more electricity, for instance, air conditioning poles, than all of the bitcoin and theory of mining? I do agree that it uses a lot of electricity, but I don’t think it’s as much as people writing articles make it seem. If you look at how much electricity we generate for air conditioning, do we technically need air conditioning? In Texas, around certain areas, we might, but when you compare it to certain things like that, it is not as bad as it looks. But I’m not going to diminish it. It takes up a lot of electricity. But when you compare it, I remember reading an article, it’s like, “bitcoin and Ethereum takes much electricity as this country.”Yea, that country had, you know, such a small amount of people that lived on it. But some people own these mines and are actively trying to find ways to make it more energy-efficient to make more money.
Look, NFTs are horrible, but are they considered terrible as the Internet intends them to be?
