To NFT or Not to NFT

The Dilemma for Creative Products, that also hits Touchgram

Photo by Bryson Hammer on Unsplash which called to me. It captures the NFT/blockchain issues of “weakest link” with feeling pulled in multiple directions.

By now, it seems everyone in the tech world has seen the term NFT. It’s certainly hard to miss on social media. If you haven’t or are a bit unsure, I’ve a longer reading list at the end of this article.

Summary and 2 minute audio version available courtesy r/MyFirstNFT

An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is a combination of three things:

1. An entry on a blockchain (not the blockchain) — Ethereum and Tezos being two commonly used.
2. An associated piece of metadata, probably a JSON document, hosted somewhere on a cloud or other addressable service, pointed to by an address in 1.
3. A digital good, or possibly real-world service or object, described by 2.

Note that anyone who says they are uploading an NFT of X to the blockchain or similar phrase, means they are creating all three of the above. An NFT where part 2, the metadata, has been lost, is little more than a blockchain entry possibly useful to a forensic accountant but otherwise meaningless.

If you’re offering any kind of creative tool or publishing service for creative works, you are probably going to have to have some kind of NFT strategy. At the very least, you need an NFT answer as to how…