What Is An NFT? Everything You Need To Know About The Future Of Art

It seems that everyday the crypto world of NFTs is making a new spectacular headline. We’ve all heard the news before, but just to get an idea of how exceptionally popular NFTs are growing to be, here’s a few exciting NFT examples:

• In 2021, Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), an NFT artist, was recognized as a top 3 most valuable living artists after he sold his piece Everydays — The First 5000 Days for $69 Million at Christie’s Auction
• Justin Bieber just recently decided to buy NFT art. He joined the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a fairly exclusive NFT project, by purchasing a Bored Ape NFT for $1.3 Million
• Even good old Dr. Phil had a segment on how anyone can be successful with NFT’s where he highlighted the millionaire creator of Belugies, a highschool girl named Abigail.

At this point it might be crazy to not ask yourself, “What’s the deal with these massive digital art projects?” or “What are these NFT things? They’ve exploded out of nowhere!”

The good news is, you don’t need to be a crypto genius to be capable of understanding NFTs, nor do you need to be a millionaire to get into them. Without further adieu, let’s get up to speed on all things NFT!

• No turning this article into an NFT when we’re done, please! ;) -

NTFs 101 — The Basics

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Each NFT represents the ownership of a unique piece of digital property as a token. These tokens exist on and are secured by a blockchain so as to be resilient against theft or copy attempts.

…Okay, I admit, that might be a lot to digest. Let’s break this down Cryptocurrency for Beginners style.

• A blockchain is a distributed public ledger that records verified information across a network of computers around the world. Since they are verifiable, decentralized records, blockchains are incredibly difficult to tamper with. When an entry is verified onto a blockchain it’s basically immutable from then on.
• Fungibility is the ability for goods or assets of the same type and equal value to be traded or exchanged.

While there are highly fungible cryptos like Bitcoin (meaning every Bitcoin shares the exact same properties as any other Bitcoin and can therefore be traded 1 for 1), there are no two NFTs that are exact equals of another. Even if 100% of one NFTs’ contents are copied into another it will never be original.

So while anybody can copy some image from off the internet, nobody can ever make a copy of or steal an original NFT thanks to blockchain technology. Hence, the ‘Non-Fungible’ part of the name.

The whole NFT market is kind of like comparing apples to apples — but imagine we’re comparing granny smiths to honeycrisps, or fuji apples vs galas. Oh, and we only have 100 apples. Many will be similar, but no two will have the exact same weight, shape, coloration, flavor, amount of seeds, and so on. Even if we compared one granny smith to another.

Look, there’s even a whole set of Dem Apple NFTs (of course there is!)

How It’s Made — NFT Style

Creating, or rather, minting NFTs is fairly straightforward. Once you’ve made the art you want to turn into an NFT, choose a blockchain that supports NFTs. The most popular is currently Ethereum.

• By the way, your NFT can be a photo, painting, image, gif, video, music, meme, or really any digital piece you have intellectual property rights to, so get creative!

The NFT minting process requires a crypto investment upfront to add to the blockchain, so you’ll need to make a digital wallet in order to transfer crypto in and out. You’ll also collect your earnings via this wallet when you sell your rockstar NFT!

My results from searching ‘Rockstar NFT’

Next, find the NFT Marketplace (NFT art website) that best matches your style and connect your digital wallet to it. The NFT market is where the magic happens. You’ll upload, hold, and make your art available to fans who want to buy NFT art.

Fayre’s Marketplace

• On Fayre, artists, brands, and fans can enjoy some slick innovations that simplify the whole process. Not only is creating and managing NFTs super straightforward on the Fayre Dashboard for Brands, the opportunity for fan engagement has never been greater. (More on this later!)
• Plus, Fayre brands can choose to mint their NFTs by using several blockchains options with Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon. And when artists use the $FAYRE token, they’re rewarded even more advantages.

Why Are These Things Fetching BIG $$$?

It’s true, there have been tons of NFTs bought and sold for seemingly wild prices. And though there’s no price limit on what the highest selling NFT could be, the most expensive NFT ever sold, as of Feb, 2022, was The Merge by Pak for $91.8 Million.

The pricing of subjective art has always been interesting. How was the value of Van Gogh’s Starry Night ($100 Million) determined? Can it honestly be compared to the value of Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A ($200 Million)? What about the prints of these two great paintings? Which print would be more valuable? You could probably print your own at home, but would it be the same?

Art’s emotional impact has always been considerable, and NFTs are no exception to this feature. Not only do NFTs get value from the direct connection to the artist, there’s innate value in the humanity embedded in each one.

Another thing to consider is the community NFTs can build. The Bored Ape Yacht Club consists of 10,000 NFTs, and has built value from its scarce, exclusive culture. Only BAYC owners are allowed in. Remember, with NFTs, “copies” are worthless because they aren’t the original, and anybody can verify that.

NFTs don’t have to be super expensive though. The average price for an NFT varies from marketplace to marketplace, but most run on Ethereum’s blockchain. On ETH, it costs a minimum of about 0.6ETH or $250. So most projects end up in the $250-$1000 range. That’s much more palatable, right?

Staying RELEVANT With NFTs

NFTs aren’t disappearing anytime soon. With more communities popping up around the world (ToastPunk Genesis, Shonen Junk, etc…) and celebrities getting in on the fun it seems we’re just at the start of this Non-Fungible ride.

Fayre is set up to work with brands, celebrities, and athletes to create NFT collections and bring NFTs to the physical world. Merchandise, clothing, and other retail will be forever connected to the digital world via NFTs.

Launching virtual properties in the Metaverse crypto industry (another topic for another article) is going to be possible thanks to NFTs. And there will certainly be Web3 solutions for Web3 sites, digital merchandise, and immersive experiences that rely solely on NFT technology to work.

Conclusion

So what have we learned? In short, Non-Fungible Tokens represent unique pieces of digital property that are secured by a blockchain. They draw value from association to an artist, the scarce communities they reside in, as well as the artistic qualities they may contain.

These pieces of digital property can be just about anything you want them to be, so long as you have the rights to the creation. Plus, they seem to be a cornerstone technology for the digital future fast approaching.

We also covered how an NFT is made! But to learn more about NFTs and about Fayre’s NFT marketplace, visit our website and follow us on our social media channels:

• Join our Telegram community to see our white paper (updated version, 1.6) and real-time news
• Subscribe to our Telegram announcements channel
• Follow us on Twitter @FayreLabs

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