Non Fungible Token. Another buzzword from the crypto family. People have been paying millions for random pieces of art since forever. Sometimes it is for investment, sometimes it is for money laundering. Rarely out of love for art.
The world has too much wealth concentrated in too few hands now - who don't know how else to spend it. In the meantime, your overlord will threaten you with a salary cut in the midst of a profitable pandemic and you will continue to work for him for every waking hour of your life sacrificing your food, health, sleep, family, friends and any meaningful relationship. You will spend the same money you earned to go to a doctor who'll tell you your brain isn't making enough serotonin. But those pills he will give you won't make up for the fact that your brain forgot to release the happy chemicals because your job does not let you do things that made you happy in the first place.
During this time, people younger than you will make more than your annual in a month by unwrapping packaged boxes, posting body aesthetics and uploading snaps from their daily life. They will travel to exotic places, eat fancy food and live their lives out. But you will tell yourself you're an ambitious young man/woman who's 'hustling' and 'making money' - completely ignoring the fact that all you're doing is selling your body and time.
In the end, the money wouldn't be enough and the time would have passed you by. Your home would be empty because the loved ones, who you convinced yourself you were doing this for, are gone and you will never get a minute with them again. You could never really take them on that dream vacation you thought your bonus would pay for. Your friends, they think your "I'm busy this weekend" is just your way of saying you don't want to be in touch with them anymore. That expensive phone you purchased now beeps out a ringtone that makes your teeth clench and you'd do anything to throw that damn device away.
Lying alone in your bed with spinal defect, damaged eyesight, cirrhotic liver and stomach ulcers with acid reflux, you'll wonder - was the capitalist economy of the last 200 years (irrelevant in the timeline of humanity, this earth and the universe) really the best way to live?
in simple terms - take the example of the Mona Lisa.
You have the original. It's in the louvre. You can see it. Touch it (carefully and if trained). Smell it. It exists. Is invaluable. But let's assign a notional value of USD 1 billion if you were to buy it. Technically, this can be bought and sold.
You can also have official prints. Let's say there are 100 of them. all numbered 1/100, 2/100 - hi res - official copies which sell at USD 1 million each. These can be bought and sold.
There are also images of the Mona Lisa by Getty images which you can licence and use on your website. Getty doesnt own the Mona Lisa, but Getty owns the copyright over the picture of the Mona Lisa they have taken. These can be bought and sold.
Finally, you have a screenshot of a picture of the mona lisa on your phone or you took a picture of the mona lisa. Anyone can take a screenshot. No intrinsic value to that. Cant really be bought or sold because there is no market for it.
Now imagine you are Jeff Bezos and you get special access to the Mona Lisa and you take a picture of it from up close and personal. and you add an IG filter to it and post it on IG. your friend sees a money making opportunity in this and says - hey jeff - please send me the picture and I will sell it. Jeff whatsapp's to you and you go to a group of friends and ask, who wants an original Jeff Bezos photo of the Mona Lisa, i will sell it for USD 10. Someone buys it and sells it to a third person for USD 15, etc etc. The fourth person says, OK i'll buy it, but how do i know this is the picture that Jeff took and not another forward or a screenshot or something. So you say - ah i predicted this! I added a unique code on this image and placed it on the blockchain so you can track that this is the same picture and track everyone who bought it because its recorded in the blockchain. suddenly this has value and can be traded
Now anyone can take a screenshot of the IG post that Jeff took and have a near copy of the same thing that is being traded for money, i.e., the image taken by Jeff Bezos. But by putting a unique identifier and placing it on the blockchain, there is one "official original". Accepting that anything can have value if people ascribe value to it, it becomes a tradeable commodity. in the same way an "official print" is nothing but a print out, they can still go for ridiculous sums because you make a limited identifiable set which people have ascribed value to.
Ascribing a unique identity and putting it on the blockchain is what an NFT is.
how are these useful? Say you are a graphic designer and license images online, you want to be able to sell them. for that you need to be able to identify that X is an original and not a copy or screenshot or whatever. So by producing original art and making it an NFT, you have an identifiable product you can trade.
I’ve been reading about it for weeks and only now understood it thanks to your comment. Just out of curiosity, are you a TMT lawyer or somebody who is just very interested? And what are your thoughts on the whole web3 space? Many lawyers abroad are known to be specialised in the blockchain space, but in India there are only a handful. Or maybe they’re the ones who market themselves a lot. I’m yet to come across a lawyer who has such a coherent understanding of this space and would like to speak to you in greater detail if that’s possible.
People have been paying millions for random pieces of art since forever. Sometimes it is for investment, sometimes it is for money laundering. Rarely out of love for art.
During this time, people younger than you will make more than your annual in a month by unwrapping packaged boxes, posting body aesthetics and uploading snaps from their daily life. They will travel to exotic places, eat fancy food and live their lives out. But you will tell yourself you're an ambitious young man/woman who's 'hustling' and 'making money' - completely ignoring the fact that all you're doing is selling your body and time.
In the end, the money wouldn't be enough and the time would have passed you by. Your home would be empty because the loved ones, who you convinced yourself you were doing this for, are gone and you will never get a minute with them again. You could never really take them on that dream vacation you thought your bonus would pay for. Your friends, they think your "I'm busy this weekend" is just your way of saying you don't want to be in touch with them anymore. That expensive phone you purchased now beeps out a ringtone that makes your teeth clench and you'd do anything to throw that damn device away.
Lying alone in your bed with spinal defect, damaged eyesight, cirrhotic liver and stomach ulcers with acid reflux, you'll wonder - was the capitalist economy of the last 200 years (irrelevant in the timeline of humanity, this earth and the universe) really the best way to live?
You have the original. It's in the louvre. You can see it. Touch it (carefully and if trained). Smell it. It exists. Is invaluable. But let's assign a notional value of USD 1 billion if you were to buy it. Technically, this can be bought and sold.
You can also have official prints. Let's say there are 100 of them. all numbered 1/100, 2/100 - hi res - official copies which sell at USD 1 million each. These can be bought and sold.
There are also images of the Mona Lisa by Getty images which you can licence and use on your website. Getty doesnt own the Mona Lisa, but Getty owns the copyright over the picture of the Mona Lisa they have taken. These can be bought and sold.
Finally, you have a screenshot of a picture of the mona lisa on your phone or you took a picture of the mona lisa. Anyone can take a screenshot. No intrinsic value to that. Cant really be bought or sold because there is no market for it.
Now imagine you are Jeff Bezos and you get special access to the Mona Lisa and you take a picture of it from up close and personal. and you add an IG filter to it and post it on IG. your friend sees a money making opportunity in this and says - hey jeff - please send me the picture and I will sell it. Jeff whatsapp's to you and you go to a group of friends and ask, who wants an original Jeff Bezos photo of the Mona Lisa, i will sell it for USD 10. Someone buys it and sells it to a third person for USD 15, etc etc. The fourth person says, OK i'll buy it, but how do i know this is the picture that Jeff took and not another forward or a screenshot or something. So you say - ah i predicted this! I added a unique code on this image and placed it on the blockchain so you can track that this is the same picture and track everyone who bought it because its recorded in the blockchain. suddenly this has value and can be traded
Now anyone can take a screenshot of the IG post that Jeff took and have a near copy of the same thing that is being traded for money, i.e., the image taken by Jeff Bezos. But by putting a unique identifier and placing it on the blockchain, there is one "official original". Accepting that anything can have value if people ascribe value to it, it becomes a tradeable commodity. in the same way an "official print" is nothing but a print out, they can still go for ridiculous sums because you make a limited identifiable set which people have ascribed value to.
Ascribing a unique identity and putting it on the blockchain is what an NFT is.
how are these useful? Say you are a graphic designer and license images online, you want to be able to sell them. for that you need to be able to identify that X is an original and not a copy or screenshot or whatever. So by producing original art and making it an NFT, you have an identifiable product you can trade.
Hope this helps!