Thereâs nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, âUmâĶ whatâs going on here?â Thatâs the feeling Iâve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one. And by the time we all thought we sort of knew what the deal was, the founder of Twitter put an autographed tweet up for sale as an NFT.
You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?
After literal hours of reading, I think I know. I also think Iâm going to cry.
Okay, letâs start with the basics:
WHAT IS AN NFT? WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?
Non-fungible token.
That doesnât make it any clearer.
Right, sorry. âNon-fungibleâ more or less means that itâs unique and canât be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible â trade one for another bitcoin , and youâll have exactly the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, youâd have something completely different. You gave up a Squirtle, and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls âthe Mona Lisa of baseball cards.â (Iâll take their word for it.)
How do NFTs work?
At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin , but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs. (Some already have.)
Whatâs worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?
NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.
You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?
After literal hours of reading, I think I know. I also think Iâm going to cry.
Okay, letâs start with the basics:
WHAT IS AN NFT? WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?
Non-fungible token.
That doesnât make it any clearer.
Right, sorry. âNon-fungibleâ more or less means that itâs unique and canât be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible â trade one for another bitcoin , and youâll have exactly the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, youâd have something completely different. You gave up a Squirtle, and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls âthe Mona Lisa of baseball cards.â (Iâll take their word for it.)
How do NFTs work?
At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin , but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs. (Some already have.)
Whatâs worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?
NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.