NFTs: What’s all the rage about?
A Japanese magnate paid around $40 mn dollars in 1987 for the painting ‘Sunflowers’ from Vincent Van Gogh. This somehow upset Banksy – an artist – and led to his artwork, ‘Morons’ in 2006. The artwork contained the words, “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit”. And this was bought by a NY gallery at around $95K the same year
Sheet, right? Hold on.
On 4th March 2021, an anonymous group, now calling itself ‘Burnt Banksy’ burned Banksy’s original art piece and created a NFT for the same, which got auctioned at $394K. They said they did this to preserve the true value of this artwork
Beeple, another artist sold his digital artwork as an NFT for $69.3K USD. You can download that from below or view the same on Google images. Now before you say, what the duck is happening, let’s move to what NFTs actually are!
NFTs are non-fungible tokens. In economics, fungible goods are defined as ones that can be interchanged. Consider the ₹2000 you have, these are no different from the ₹2000 I have and have the same value and use case. However, a non-fungible good is one of a kind which cannot be replaced or traded
Put simply, NFTs are digital artworks stored using the ETH blockchain technology. If you can buy physical properties/goods and gain ownership of the same, then why digital artworks be any different?
This got prominence with the blockchain tech being at the core of all NFTs. Like bitcoins, all the relevant details of the artwork – can be music, paintings, cards – are stored on the ETH blockchain tech and are then sold/ auctioned to the collectors. Since, the data on blockchain cannot be altered/ corrupted, people believe that NFTs are the best way to preserve one’s arts.
Sir, I get all of this BUT can I not just download these images off the internet like you did?
Yes, you can, and you should. Take a printout and hang it on your wall. Similar to what you did with that Mona Lisa painting that originally belongs to Louvre in Paris. However, this would not give you the ownership of the original painting. An artist can ask for royalties and if wish can share that with the NFT owner but you cannot claim anything on your printout. Like we cannot change Markets 101’s logo to Mona Lisa because it is just not legit
Another dominant feature of NFTs is to trace an object’s digital provenance – place of origin – which is transparent and visible to all. So, if you sing really well and believe you can sell your art at a decent price – go for it! It will be safe and secure as an NFT and you’ll get full credits for your song. To hell with those corporate credit-seeking duckers!
Moving on.
However, do the cost benefit analysis as setting up NFTs and the overall costs till their sale adds up to around $70 - $100. You can head on to Open Sea if you wish to get a flavour of NFTs and explore the ones over there while you are at it
Increased transparency, effective decentralization and a sprinkle of ‘this is cool’ has made NFT the dish it is today. But it has potential and it very well might be the future of art. But, who knows?
For more on NFTs, you can watch this really NFT-worthy video by WSJ!
That’s all folks. Now, go make your day!
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