You may have heard of the next big trend within the digital world, NFTs. Even if you are aware of the craze you might still find yourself wondering what it actually is. NFTs have become a hot commodity lately, with everyone from artists, musicians, sportspeople, and even entrepreneurs jumping on the NFT bandwagon and making thousands and even millions trading them.
What is an NFT?
An NFT is a non-fungible ‘digital’ token. If Kate buys an original piece of Picasso’s art for a large amount of money, she is also able to sell the piece of art to a collector. If John buys a mass-produced print of Picasso’s work for £10 he will probably bin it when he’s had enough of it. Kate is the owner of an original collectible piece of art and John is the owner of a mass-produced copy worth barely anything. Neither Kate or John own the copyright to the piece of art, Picasso’s successors own that.
An NFT is exactly that but in the digital world. John buys an original NFT GIF of a cat dancing for a large amount of money, he is also able to sell the digital asset to a collector for a large amount of money. Kate is able to download the exact same GIF of a cat dancing but this download is exactly like John’s mass-produced picasso print, worthless in comparison. John is still not the owner of the cat GIF copyright but he is the owner of an original piece of digital ‘art’
What do people think of NFTs?
Now that you know what an NFT is you might be interested to know that the craze is fast changing how things are traded in the digital world. Significantly, the phenomenal growth and adoption of NFTs could start to threaten traditional markets or will they? NFTs also come with their share of controversy due to claims that the process behind them contributes to global warming and even provides an opening for fraudsters. Piplsay polled 30,390 Americans and 6,050 Britons nationwide to get some insights into what they think about them. Below are the results:
