What on earth is a ‘digital collectible’?
This short blog post is designed to explain to anyone, with any level of knowledge about technology, precisely what a ‘digital collectible’ (also called a ‘nifty’ ) is.
If you have seen either one of those terms and scratched your head in confusion— don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place!
First thing: nifties and digital collectibles are the same thing. These are just two synonymous terms that refer to the same invention.
Nifties are also called crypto collectibles, NFTs, or non fungible tokens.
Now — wtf is a nifty?
To start with — what is a physical collectible item?
The best way to understand digital collectible items is through physical collectible items. A great example of a physical collectible item is a pair of Air Jordans.
Like all items, they have a utility aspect and a rarity aspect. At first, they were mostly utility — you bought Air Jordans to wear them. Now, however, Air Jordans are purchased almost exclusively for their rarity and beauty.
Air Jordans are well designed. They are beautiful, stylish and rare.
They’re a mass market product, and people spend hundreds of millions of dollars on them each year.
In the physical world, we have physical items. But now we also have digital worlds. So it makes sense we have digital items as well…
There are also mass market collectible digital items
A lot of digital items are also bought because they are beautiful and rare.
A great example is Fortnite skins. At one point, Epic Games was selling around $300 million worth of Fortnite skins per month!
Very similar to Air Jordans, these digital items have become something that people truly desire and spend lots of money to get.
Digital items are collecting for the next generation. People who buy Fortnite skins are internet native and intuitively understand stylish items that only exist in the digital realm.
However, existing digital items have limitations
Fortnite skins are extremely successful.
But due to the underlying technology used to create them, they have some limitations.
Fortnite skins are digital items that only exist inside the world of Fortnite.
If Fortnite were to ever shut down, then your Fortnite skins would stop existing.
This is a big difference compared to Air Jordans — your Air Jordans won’t disappear if Nike shuts down, they might even become more valuable!
To get your Air Jordans someone would have to break into your house and steal them. To get your Fortnite skins, they would only need to change a single line of code.
You‘re also unable to trade and move your Fortnite skins freely. You can only trade & move your Fortnite skins if Epic Games allows you too.
A nifty is a digital item that exists permanently and can be bought, sold or traded at will
A nifty is what you would get if you made a digital version of a pair of Air Jordans.
It is collectible, rare and beautiful. It exists permanently, unlike other digital items. Because nifties are based on blockchain technology, they will never go away.
And nifties are yours to freely buy and sell as you choose. You have total control over your digital item, the same way you have total control over your Air Jordans.
A nifty is a digital item that will exist forever and that you truly own!
Nifties come in all shapes and sizes
There are many different types of nifties out there — CryptoKitties, MLB Crypto Baseball and Axie Infinity to name a few. The NBA just announced that they’re working with Dapper labs to create a nifty for basketball fans!
Nifites are the future of collecting and of fan experiences.
A generation of digitally native people intuitively understand digital items and are willing to spend money on them.
If you’re a brand and you’re not making nifties now, keep an eye out. Your competitors likely are and you don’t want to be left out.
Go deeper
On purpose, this explanation was high level and didn’t dig into the specifics too much. Here are some more things you can read about digital collectibles:
NFTs: What are they good for? — Todd Goldberg
Non fungible tokens explained — Cointelegraph
Turning in-game virtual goods into assets — Wired
We hope you enjoyed this extremely brief explanation of what a nifty is! If you want to create your own nifty, send an email to duncan@niftygateway.com or griffin@niftygateway.com.
-The Nifty Gateway team
