What is NFT?
What is NFT (Non-Fungible Token)?
Nowadays, the questions like What is NFT? How can you buy an NFT? are very popular. You can find answers to these questions and basic information about NFTs in this article.
We see that NFTs are used in areas such as digital art, collectibles, games, music, movies, sports, and fashion. For example, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million. But before you get into this field, there are some basics you should know. We have compiled them for you in this article.
What is NFT?
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger, that can be sold and traded. Types of NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because each token is uniquely identifiable, NFTs differ from most cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, which are fungible.
NFT ledgers claim to provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, but the legal rights conveyed by an NFT can be uncertain. NFTs do not restrict the sharing or copying of the underlying digital files, do not necessarily convey the copyright of the digital files, and do not prevent the creation of NFTs with identical associated files.
NFTs have been used as a speculative asset, and they have drawn increasing criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with validating blockchain transactions as well as their frequent use in art scams. The NFT market has also been compared to a Ponzi scheme.
NFTs are now used to commodify digital assets in art, music, sports, and other popular entertainment. Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain; however, other blockchains may implement their own versions of NFT.
NFT’s market capitalization tripled in 2020 to over $250 million. The rise of NFT transactions has led to increased environmental criticism. Proof-of-work, the kind used mainly for NFTs, the computational-heavy processes associated with blockchains require high energy inputs that contribute to global warming. The carbon emissions generated by the energy needed to sustain these blockchains have forced some in the NFT market to rethink their carbon footprint.
How to make an NFT?
Anyone with a modest amount of money to spend can mint an NFT. Today’s NFT platforms offer tools that let you create all sorts of NFTs, as well as attach unlockable content to your files. Whether you’re an artist, musician, collector, entrepreneur, or company, you can create your very own NFT by using easy minting tools available on NFT marketplaces. NFTs require the creation of digital tokens with a technique called cryptography. In the crypto world, this token creation is called minting. Typically, you have to pay to create smart contracts using cryptocurrency to mint NFTs.
Smart contracts are pieces of software code that enable the blockchain to store information securely and transparently. Ultimately, these codes are the technology that manages the ownership and transfers of NFTs.
NFT minting is produced in ERC-727C token standards prepared by Ethereum blockchain developers. Of course, it is important to make the job of NFT producers easier because the technical side of the blockchain can get quite complex. Platforms that provide convenience to manufacturers to perform NFT production processes facilitate this situation. In this way, what manufacturers need in this process is a digital cryptocurrency wallet.
How to sell an NFT?
There are lots of online platforms you can use to make and sell an NFT. Some of the most popular NFT auction platforms include OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, Foundation, VIV3, BakerySwap, Axie Marketplace, and NFT ShowRoom.
There are plenty of NFT payment platforms too, with Coinbase, MetaMask, Torus, Portis, WalletConnect, MyEtherWallet, and Fortmatic some of the best known.
To make and sell an NFT you’ll need cryptocurrency. All of the NFT auction platforms mentioned above will want to pay upfront to ‘mint’ an NFT, which is the process that turns your artwork into a non-fungible token that you can sell.
In most cases, payment must be made in cryptocurrency, which means that before you have a chance of earning any cryptocurrency by selling an NFT of your work, you’ll need to buy some in order to cover the fees.
If you already own some ETH, you’ll need to make sure you, have it in a digital wallet, which you’ll need to connect to your chosen NFT platform to make (and receive) payments.
Popular NFT examples
- Everydays: The First 5000 Days
This NFT is a digital collage of 5,000 images created by Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist professionally known as Beeple. It was minted as a JPG file and sold for a record $69.3 million at a major auction house in 2021. The value of this NFT lies in the 5,000 daily futuristic images Beeple made each day, from May 1, 2007, through January 7, 2021.
2. Nyan Cat GIF
The cool thing about NFTs is that anyone can turn their creation into a one-of-kind asset. For its 10th anniversary, Nyan Cat’s creator decided to turn the wildly popular GIF into an NFT and auction it off. Can you guess what the winning bid was? 300 Ethereum tokens!
3. Bored Ape Yacht Club
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a top-grossing NFT collection of 10,000 cartoonish apes. It was the brainchild of four friends who were inspired to use apes as their social avatars because “aping in” is a term for folks who would buy new NFTs without considering the risks involved. Little did they know, a few years later everyone from entrepreneurs to celebrities would be aping in and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on their creations. (For example, Eminem spent a whopping $462,000 to acquire a Bored Ape NFT.)
Briefly
Of course, this article is not a well-rounded list. NFT is a very large field. Without going into too much technical detail, we hope we answer your questions, especially the main question “What is NFT?”. It should not be forgotten that the sector is developing very fast and new projects are born every day.
Umutcan ÇAKAR
Sources:
https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/make-and-sell-an-NFT
https://cryptogamingarea.com/en/faq/nft-definition/
https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-nft-crypto-art/
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/how-to-make-nft
Join Coinmonks Telegram Channel and Youtube Channel learn about crypto trading and investing
