Some of you may or may not know this, but I am working on creating a strategy to combine NFT’s with my fiction work. Before we get into the actual strategy, though; I want to answer some possible lingering questions.
Questions like: What is an NFT? How do I buy one? Why would I want to buy one? What’s going on?
I’ll be honest; it’s still new to me and relatively new to the world. OpenSea is the largest platform for selling NFT’s right now and it only started 4 years ago.
However, I will do my best to answer your questions!
First, what is an NFT?
NFT is an acronym. It stands for Non-Fungible Token. Ooh...gross, sounds technical. Not really, though. The term has been around for forever. According to etymonline, the etymology of the word fungible can trace back to the 1700s:
“capable of being used in place of another; capable of being replaced," 1818, a word in law originally, from Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungi "perform" (see function (n.)) via phrases such as fungi vice "to take the place." Earlier as a noun (1765).”
Ok, in layman terms this time. Fungible just means something that can be used in place of another. Think of a 1 dollar bill. I know it’s been a while since we’ve used cash, but you should still remember. If I trade you a dollar bill for a different dollar bill, did I get richer? No. They are of the same exact value and can replace each other with ease.
What about the Declaration of Independence? Remember the movie, National Treasure? When Nicholas Cage switches the real Declaration of Independence for the fake one (spoiler alert), was it a big deal or not?
It was a huge deal!
That’s because the Declaration of Independence is a Non-Fungible document. A copy of it is not the exact same as the real thing. It may look and read like the original, but it’s not the original.
Following so far?
So this notion of Non-Fungible has been around since the dawn of time. Why is it a big deal now?
Because until now, there was no way to do this in a digital format. Think about sites like Napster that stole and gave away free music, or the millions of dollars lost due to pirated movies every year. All because a digital copy of a movie or song is the same thing as the original.
Well, now with digital NFT’s we can create unique digital things just like we can in the real world! You can create a song and prove that the one you own is in fact the original.
This is huge!
I recently read a book about NFT’s, called NFT Art and Collectibles for Beginners: The Must Have Guide for Understanding Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by Chris Collins.
and he put it like this:
“Given that the NFT data is stockpiled on the blockchain, the tokens can't be removed, destroyed, or replicated. Ownership of these tokens is also undisputable, which means collectors and gamers genuinely own their NFTs, not the establishments that generate them.”
That is more or less what an NFT is. It’s fairly simple if you don’t think about it too much. It is a unique digital item that cannot be copied. It seems simple, but the technology that makes this possible is revolutionary. The opportunities with NFT’s are endless.
I have another article coming out soon that breaks down some of the cool ways we’ve already seen NFT’s used, and some of the potentials yet to come. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, if you want to prepare yourselves on how you even go about viewing or purchasing NFT’s, check out this official guide put out by OpenSea.