But is it art? NFTs versus van Gogh

A recent #fintwit thread debated the merits of NFTs asking, “Is a digital blob really less valuale than oil painting on a canvas? And while neither solve world hunger, both offer investment opportunities”. And that got me thinking – are NFTs here to stay? As a crypto sceptic, I always head to my mates at EasyCrypto to clarify. Here’s what the super smart crypto gurus at EasyCrypto have have to say ….

“Undoubtedly the biggest buzz in crypto lately has been NFTs. But what are they? We break it down.

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. 

When something is fungible it can be readily interchanged – think money. With money you can swap a R100 note for two R50 notes and you wouldn’t care-it will have the same value. When something is non-fungible, this is impossible – it means it has unique properties so it cannot be interchanged with something else.

Tokens are cryptocurrencies that do not have their own blockchain but operate on another blockchain.

NFTs are digital tokens that can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets.

Unlike cryptocurrencies (the future of money), NFTs are not supposed to act as a means of exchange, but they are still crypto-assets because of their unique digital signatures, which cannot be altered or forged. NFTs are “one-of-a-kind” assets that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, they are tokenized versions of digital or real-world assets.

You can think of NFTs as digital collectables.

NFTs can be traded in open marketplaces that connect buyers with sellers, just like an art auction for example, the value of each NFT is unique.

As NFTs are blockchain tokens representing a unique digital item, they can represent nearly anything from art, music, in-game assets, videos, images etc-they can be entirely digital or tokenized versions of physical assets. A digital record of the ownership is stored on a shared

ledger known as a blockchain.

Some recent examples of NFTs

• A digital-only artwork has sold at Christie’s auction house for a whopping $69m.
• The NBA has NBA Top Shot – a way of selling digital collectibles in the form of trading cards embedded with iconic moments from the game.
• Visa bought a ‘CryptoPunk’ NFT for $150K.
• Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey promoted an NFT of the first-ever tweet, with bids hitting $2.5m.

• NFTs have also entered video gaming. In-game purchases or rewards, these assets can be bought and sold by players, and include playable assets like unique skins or avatars.

Celebrities haven’t been shy to get involved either, from Paris Hilton to Ellen DeGeneres, Shawn Mendes, Snoop Dogg, Grimes and dozens of others have embraced the concept.

In the same way Bitcoin is hailed as the digital answer to fiat currency, NFTs are now being touted as the digital answer to collectables.

What does it mean for the EasyCrypto10?

NFTs are good for the chains they run on eg, Ethereum, BNB, ADA etc as they are written on the underlying blockchains. Even if you are sceptical of the hype and buzz around NFTs, it’s another use case that’s already a multi-billion dollar industry underpinned by the assets that are constituents in the EasyCrypto10 bundle.”

So, while it may be a while before NFTs are widely thought of as beautiful, amazing artwork like van Gogh’s Sunflowers, they certainly seem to be providing opportunities for investors with a healthy appetite for risk!