A (Very) Beginners Guide to NFTs

So. As a 20-year-old with a Spotify playlist named ‘Old Soul,’ filled with the likes of Billy Joel, Simon, and Garfunkel, and Elton John, I pretty much think I’m (you guessed it), an old soul. Now, I try not to tell people I think that of myself because every time I do, I pretty much get an eye roll from the majority of the people listening.

What does any of this have to do with NFTs you ask? When I first started hearing the new buzzword, I was extremely confused. I did not know what NFTs were, what they did, or who would even want them. ‘The original is better,’ I thought. Art needs to be felt, touched, and put on display in museums-not on my iPhone. I don’t need anything else on my iPhone. It also threw me off when I discovered that anyone, even I can create an NFT. It may not be good, but with a sketchpad app and a stylus-I can create some digital art of my own.

When I started sharing my opinions on NFTs and how I believed they took the authenticity out of art as a whole, people started to call me an old soul.

Well, guess who was doing the eye-rolling then. So, I began my mission to grasp the basics of NFTs, I wanted to really understand what the hype was about-and like it.

Here are my findings:

An NFT stands for a non-fungible token. Now, a non-fungible token can be anything. In this case, what it really means is: A unique and irreplaceable item. In this case, the unique and irreplaceable item isn’t the actual digital art. While you get to post, share, and show everyone your shiny brand new NFT, this is not what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the ownership of the art.

My next question on the topic of owning the NFT was: Well, I can screenshot an NFT and send it around to my friends even if I don’t own it. This was explained very simply to me. The Mona Lisa. The Lourve attracts 10 million people per year and you bet most of them have traveled far and wide just to see the iconic masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. Now, I can take photos of the Mona Lisa, I can even purchase my very own print of it on Amazon, but there is only one original. NFTs are the original.

So, what’s the point? Well, like any popular topic of conversation, people want to be a part of the NFT movement. With the emergence of Web 2.0, crypto, and the metaverse, NFTs seem essential to have in your back pocket.

I learned the top three reasons people actually own NFTs, and they are:

1. Art collecting
2. Trading cards of some sort
3. To, for lack of a better word, generate some clout

Clout [KLOWT], noun

• Urban Dictionary refers to ‘clout’ as, “Power, fame, money, influence, style, etc.”)
• I’d define clout as keeping up with the times-in a cool, social media, trendy way.)Buying an NFT is not the only way to get your hands on one, but more and more NFTs are being offered as incentives or gifts. For example, if you like football, DraftKings has challenged its users to beat 2,000 people in Fantasy Football. In exchange for the win, they will award you with a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. Football not your thing? No problem. Louis Vuitton is celebrating their 200th anniversary with a mobile game, Louis the Game, and there are 30 Beeple NFTs to be found along the way.