A NFT (non-fungible token) is data added to a file that creates a unique signature. It can be an image file, a song, a tweet, a text posted on a website, a physical item, and various other digital formats.
This basically means that someone can own a digital file (and that it’s marked with code to differentiate it from any digital replicas).
How do NFTs work?
At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, which store extra information that makes them work differently from, say, an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs.
Although that may be far from simple for the uninitiated to understand, the payoff has been huge for many artists, musicians, influencers and the like, with investors spending top dollar to own NFT versions of digital images. For example, Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9 million, a video clip of a LeBron James slam dunk sold for over $200,000 and a decade-old “Nyan Cat” GIF went for $600,000.
How to buy NFTs?
Essentially, any digital image can be purchased as an NFT. But there are a few things to consider when buying one, especially if you’re a newbie. You’ll need to decide what marketplace to buy from, what type of digital wallet is required to store it and what kind of cryptocurrency you’ll need to complete the sale.
Lear more on NFT Marketplace
What Are NFTs Used For?
Blockchain technology and NFTs afford artists and content creators a unique opportunity to monetize their wares. For example, artists no longer have to rely on galleries or auction houses to sell their art. Instead, the artist can sell it directly to the consumer as an NFT, which also lets them keep more of the profits. In addition, artists can program in royalties so they’ll receive a percentage of sales whenever their art is sold to a new owner. This is an attractive feature as artists generally do not receive future proceeds after their art is first sold.
What’s stopping people copying the digital art?
Nothing. Millions of people have seen Beeple’s art that sold for $69m and the image has been copied and shared countless times.
In many cases, the artist even retains the copyright ownership of their work, so they can continue to produce and sell copies.
But the buyer of the NFT owns a “token” that proves they own the “original” work.
How to create your own NFT?
How to make and sell an NFT is a question on many artists’ minds at the moment.
Pick your digital file
The first thing you have to do is to pick the artwork. Non-fungible tokens can represent any digital file. You can make an NFT of a digital painting, a text, a piece of music, a video. Literally, anything that can be reproduced as a multimedia file.
Choose a NFT marketplace
Now that you’ve got everything in place, you need to pick a marketplace where you will physically (virtually?) create and then list your NFT.
The most popular ones are Mintable, Rarible or OpenSea.
Create the NFT
Once you’ve connected the ETH Wallet to OpenSea, you can go on and create your first NFT. Click on Create in the top menu, and create a collection.
