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INSIDE THE NEWEST CRYPTO CRAZE: THE NFT

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News + Politics


INSIDE THE NEWEST CRYPTO CRAZE: THE NFT

By Joshua Eferighe

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WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Because you should know why people are paying $200,000 for a LeBron James dunk
highlight.

By Joshua Eferighe

March 4, 2021

Chances are, you’ve been hearing the buzz about Bitcoin lately. But there’s a
new sensation on the crypto block, and all of a sudden it’s become a market
worth hundreds of millions of dollars: non-fungible tokens, aka NFTs. They are
much more than the latest hottest gadget. From NBA rookie sensation LaMelo
Ball to rapper Post Malone and singer Grimes, the concept of original digital
content — think first draft of a masterpiece novel or an original Picasso, but
in digital form — has piqued the interest of creatives everywhere. Today’s Daily
Dose breaks down this revolutionary concept, the key players and how they will
continue to shape our world — whether you buy into the craze or not.

THE RUNDOWN

What Are They? The best way to understand non-fungible tokens is to break down
the terminology. They are tokens, which should sound familiar, given Bitcoin’s
popularity. Like cryptocurrencies, NFTs operate on blockchain technology in a
decentralized market and are stored in secure digital wallets. Fungibility
describes something that’s easily interchangeable: You can trade a $5 bill for
five $1 bills. Unlike cryptocurrencies, however, NFTs are unique and can’t be
simply swapped. They can be just about anything you can convert to digital form,
but the craze right now is around artwork. Think of them as digital collectibles
like trading cards and stamps, where even items that look the same are
differentiated by issue date and condition. Instead of a physical certificate of
authentication, NFTs use blockchain technology, typically Ethereum, as a
verifiable digital ledger.

Why Are They So Valuable? Collectors are going to collect. And aside from the
appeal of owning a verified piece of art no one else has — even if they can
download a copy — NFTs are turning into a mode of investing, as their
market quadrupled to $250 million last year. That’s why you’re seeing day
traders and gamblers leap into the space along with die-hard collectors.
Creatives with iconic and nostalgic intellectual property drop new collectibles
all the time. Think of a freshly made Michael Jordan rookie card hitting the
streets. (or rare Beanie Babies). An NFT video of LeBron James dunking a
basketball sold for $208,000 in January to a group of investors who expect its
value to rise because it’s an original, verified and rare piece, even though
anyone can rewatch the dunk on the internet. An artist named Beeple recently
sold a 10-second video clip for $6.6 million, while the bidding keeps rising for
another Beeple that is the first completely digital work to be sold at the famed
Christie’s auction house.

Where Did They Come From? Versions of NFTs have been around since 2012, but the
concept took off in 2017, like so many things on the internet, thanks to cats.
CryptoKitties were being bought and sold on the Ethereum blockchain at such
volume that they slowed down the network. From there, the concept evolved so
that major sums were being paid for an X-ray of William Shatner’s teeth.

Why Are They Blowing Up Now? Blockchain-driven decentralized finance, or
DeFi, surged in 2020 as people moved away from the traditional financial system
amid widespread distrust of institutions, common during recessions. But last
year a recession coincided with the arrival of digital commerce like never
before. That appetite was behind not only the Bitcoin boom but also other new
blockchain-based financial ideas like NFTs, which took off after floating around
for a few years.

 Tokenizing Your Content. Digital content is tokenized — or becomes an NFT —
through a process called “minting,” which assigns a coin on a blockchain to any
given work, authenticating as many copies the creators see fit. Anything can be
made into an NFT, from a recipe to a song. However, to do so you need a crypto
wallet and to have purchased some cryptocurrency as it costs to create an
NFT, typically anywhere from $2 to $32 depending on the day’s “gas price.”
Afterward, pairing your wallet to a marketplace listing an NFT is as simple as
an upload.

Pitfalls. We’ve seen the boom-and-bust cycle before in the crypto market, such
as initial coin offerings (when startups, many of which failed, issued digital
tokens to raise money) that were scorching hot around 2017. So NFTs are no safe
bet. Whether you want to look at Mark Cuban selling one of his tweets for $952,
Lindsay Lohan selling an image of her face for more than $2,000 or
actor/boxer/social media tycoon Logan Paul selling NFTs of himself unpackaging
Pokémon cards for millions of dollars, the market is running amok in ways that
don’t always make sense.

 


CHANGING THE WORLD

Power to the (Digital) Artist. NFTs are revolutionary for artists and creators
as they give them complete authority over their content, how to distribute it
and who gets a cut. The smart contracts governing NFTs allow artists to retain a
copyright and to earn a percentage of every sale, so they benefit as the value
of their work rises. Digital artists are seeing a boom as their work finally has
a chance to be collected in a way that previously was reserved for fine art.
Next up? Musicians, who could leverage the platform to make far more than the
per-stream pittance they get from the Spotifys of the world.

New Way to Invest. At a time when investors are looking beyond Bitcoin for the
next big thing, NFTs have arrived. Entrepreneur guru Gary Vaynerchuk says he’s
been waiting for this moment since 2010 and that the “next 36 months will be
incredible,” as he uses his platforms to evangelize for NFTs. During a single
day in February, NFTs generated more total sales than they did in all of 2020.
But investing is not as simple as hopping onto a brokerage site. To purchase an
NFT, you typically have to buy Ethereum cryptocurrency, then store it in a
digital wallet like MetaMask — which comes with fees, so it can cost as much as
$100 just to make a bid.

More Than an Investment. Given that NFTs are unique and publicly verifiable,
they could one day be a standard form of digital ID. An NFT assigned to you at
birth could be the basis for your international passport, or even allow you to
vote online for president. But until the day when your Social Security card
comes with a cat image, NFTs can be used to verify all sorts of things. Nike
recently patented “CryptoKicks,” which attaches a token to its wildly popular
(and collectible) sneakers to verify their authenticity and confirm ownership.


 


KEY PLAYERS

NBA Top Shot. One of the biggest drivers of this year’s NFT craze is the NBA,
which, in partnership with Dapper Labs, launched Top Shot — a company that
offers digital basketball highlights called “moments” to buy and sell. Depending
on how many digital copies were made, these moments can be quite rare. And these
blocks and dunks are generating serious coin. The site CryptoSlam tracks more
than 90,000 buyers and around $300 million in sales for Top Shot, making it by
far the biggest crypto collectible. And yes, the players will get a cut, as
a portion of the proceeds is added to the NBA’s revenue pie.

Grimes. Not bad for a day’s work. The 32-year-old musician and artist sold
nearly $6 million worth of NFTs on Sunday. The haul came from 10 pieces that
mostly feature winged cherubs called “war nymphs,” some of which sold thousands
of copies. Like her partner, Elon Musk, who has gone from electric cars
to moonshots, Grimes is continuing to defy expectations.

Ben Mauro. There may be no better example of how NFTs can change an artist’s
career than this senior concept designer and art director. With more than 12
years in the gaming and film industry, he’s created realistic universes for The
Hobbit, Amazing Spider-Man 2, Halo Infinite and Call of Duty. Now Mauro is
teaming up with crypto trading platform VIV3 for a limited-edition trading card
series called Evolution, showcasing his creatures. The money he’s making funds
his future projects, something he said would have eaten into his savings.

Roy Zou. While the market is frothing in the U.S., NFTs haven’t really caught on
in China. Zou is trying to change that, via the blockchain version of Second
Life, the Ethereum-powered Decentraland. Zou built the largest space on the
game, a virtual piece of land called Dragon City, which is rooted in Chinese
mythology. It can also be a moneymaker, as property transactions in Decentraland
are monetized via special tokens. Zou is hoping the concept attracts a crowd of
Chinese crypto enthusiasts — particularly since there’s no private land
ownership in China — and draw them into the world of NFTs.

 


Hipster pop music artist recording song at professional music studio

WILD WORLD OF BLOCKCHAIN

Growth and Regulation. Right now, NFTs are the Wild West, and the whole idea of
crypto wallets is designed to avoid prying government eyes, but there are legal
concerns around copyrights and fake accounts at auctions. Don’t be surprised to
see law enforcement busts in the NFT marketplace in the coming months,
especially as it becomes more global. The Chinese-centric blockchain
Tron introduced a new NFT framework in December, while Japanese regulators are
grappling with how to police this growing marketplace.

Music Distribution. Artists looking for a fairer shake from notoriously stingy
streamers might be able to turn to blockchain. Audius, a San Francisco–based
company that has raised nearly $10 million from Silicon Valley investors, offers
direct connections between fans and artists, including exclusive new releases,
by verifying transactions on the blockchain and allowing artists to directly
negotiate their fees. Consider it the utopian version of Spotify.

Patriotism. Given how murky global supply chains can be, you often don’t know
where your shirt really comes from. The blockchain is here to help.
With usastrong, Krissy Mashinsky, a former Urban Outfitters executive and her
tech entrepreneur husband, Alex, have launched a platform for verifiably
American-made gear. The inspiration came last year when local businesses were
suffering amid COVID-19. By creating a list of factors that goods must check off
to be better tracked by the blockchain, the Mashinskys can guarantee that
everything bought in their store — from a “Made in the USA” label on a ceramic
mug to a fleece hoodie or fragrant candle — was in fact manufactured in the
States. The hope is to ignite a spark for sustainable domestic manufacturers.
Read more on OZY.

Urban Planning. While Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are trying to rule new planets,
one tech titan is aiming to run his own city in the middle of the Nevada desert.
Jeffrey Berns, of Blockchains LLC, is pitching a “smart city” near Reno where
you buy goods in digital currency, and your life, down to your medical records,
is verified on the blockchain. The kicker: He wants Blockchains LLC to control
the government in this special “Innovation Zone,” and he has the backing of Gov.
Steve Sisolak, a Democrat. While county leaders where the city would be are
pushing back against this kind of “separatist government control,” they remain
interested in the possibilities the futuristic city represents.


 * Joshua Eferighe, Reporter Contact Joshua Eferighe


March 4, 2021

TOPICS

 * Art
 * BUSINESS
 * Cryptocurrencies
 * Finance
 * TECH



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