NFTs : The New Hub For Art Enthusiasts

‘ Everydays: The First 5000 Days’ by Michael Joseph Winkelmann or well known by the name ‘BEEPLE’ was sold for a whooping 69 million dollars at Christie’s Auction House. This piece of art was bought by Vignesh Sundaresan via the most famous altcoin, Ether using the Ethereum platform. Also, Zack Dorsey sold his first tweet for 2.5 million dollars in cryptocurrency. Elon Musk, singer Grimes, youtuber Logan Paul and many others have either joined or are about jump on the bandwagon. All these stuffs are digitalized. In layman’s term, these aren’t physical but are available digitally and are owned by a particular person.
Non-Fungible Tokens or more popularly known as NFT are unreplaceable tokens that are given to certain item registered under it. This involves application of a unique token number to each of the registered item which may include GIFs, videoclips, video snippets, etc. This has helped in maintaining the authenticity of the owner as well as the creator. Additionally, the creators are availed with a principle of royalty, i.e., if their creations get sold multiple times, they get certain fixed amount which is the royalty sum each time the item gets sold. These transactions work under the Ethereum platform which is backed with blockchain technology. Now the blockchain technology is considered a safe bet by some experts and some have flagged the nascent but evolving technology. Whenever a transaction is made, a signal is sent to data stack which in turn directs this signal to other stacks which is managed by various blockchain programmers. This ensures the data is inerasable and keeps in check the security aspect of data making it extremely difficult for the hackers to steal anything. Certain platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible, Cent support the such transactions involving NFTs.
In accordance with a two-sided coin, it also has its pros and cons. Lately even with the secured settings, plagiarisms have been a major headache for the authority as well as the creators. Many like Derek Laufman have reported their piece of art being copied and are being sold in various platforms with verified accounts under the creator’s name sans the knowledge about it to the original creator. It will be interesting to see how the authorities deal with the problem in the coming time. Another major issue is the medium of transaction. Currently only cryptocurrency is being accepted as the only mode of payment making it available to certain set of the population only. An inculcation of various other modes would definitely uplift its market although safety of transactions should be kept in check. Also, a third party such as Ethereum and internet connection, involvement is also necessary for safe and hassle-free transaction. Since the transaction involves bitcoin mining, it consumes a lot of electricity which deteriorates the environment, exacerbating Global Warming. This issue has been highlighted by numerous activists and environmentalists.
NFTs using the blockchain technology is quite nascent. Time and adequate attention should be given to its development. Focus should be on the filling up of the various loopholes that evidently appear throughout the process. People with the same mindset need to take interest in it and pave a path for its development. If nurtured carefully, it definitely has the potential to grow.