NFTs, non-expendable pieces, are unleashing a revolution in the art market, with a strong impact among collectors.
Through this mechanism, various works have been commercialized in recent times, varying even beyond art in its traditional sense, with large sums of money involved.
What is an NFT?
A non-fungible token is a sign of ownership of an asset, existing in a blockchain environment, which makes this condition of possession transparent. Just as a flight ticket represents the ownership that each passenger has over the space allocated to travel on the plane, these tokens work in a similar way.
The key characteristic of these assets is their fungibility, or in other words, their interchangeability, which in these cases is reduced to zero. An example of fungibility is presented with the ingredients of a recipe. Flour, in its most generic sense, can be replaced by another from any source as long as it remains flour. It is easy to exchange and replace.
A non-fungible token is something unique, which cannot be easily exchanged with something similar. For this reason, by way of certification of authenticity, there are works of art that have been traded for large sums of money through blockchain.
What are NFTs for?
One of the latest news from this world that has attracted strong attention is the commercialization of a collage of 5 thousand photographs for nearly $ 70 million. Although also, there have been more curious cases such as the sale of the original gif of Nyan cat for 590 thousand dollars or the first tweet ever, for two and a half million dollars.
These contents are highly falsifiable and replicable on the web. In many cases, it is enough to save an image or take a screenshot to have a duplicate. However, the value of collecting that is added to these works enters strongly into this equation, as they have a backing of authenticity and an associated title deed. With this, a dynamics very similar to those of museums or art galleries is generated, but under a totally digitized modality, which can drive new waves of support or patronage for artists or content creators through the Internet.
Although the focus of the use of this technology has been around examples such as those mentioned, NFTs can be used for even broader purposes, such as establishing title to real estate or other tangible objects.
However, non-fungible tokens still respond to a niche requirement on the Internet. The outbreak around its use and media coverage is recent, but the first experiments date back to a period between 2013 and 2014.
The future of NFTs
Although the outlook is interesting and promising, there are still some problems in the NFT market. The main currency and network to establish these markets is Ethereum, which has entailed very high transaction fees that, in general, include the payment of commissions of up to 50 dollars to make the transfer of ownership of the NFT of its creator effective. to the buyer.
Another key point to consider is the carbon footprint left by these transactions. Ethereum plans to change its structure in early 2022, to be much more environmentally friendly.
Just as there are already platforms and markets dedicated to the commercialization of NFT, the future promises to be profitable for this technology, considering the boom period that today represents for blockchain technology in general, not only for cryptocurrencies.
