What Are NFTs and Why Is Everyone Crazy About Them? Here Are 10 Things You Need to Know About NFTs.
Aluxers, we need to talk about something. That is, NFTs.
We kinda saw this coming, but we didn’t expect it to be so soon and this big.
Let’s talk about NFT’s and how one guy just sold a bunch of pixels on a screen for 69$ million.
If you have no idea what’s going on, this is the perfect article for you.
We’ll touch on how NFT’s work, what’s the potential and exactly how one guys sold his digital artwork and became a “quote” millionaire overnight.
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Since today we are talking about all things digital, reading an article about it doesn’t make sense. Switch out to the video version:
Let’s cut to the chase and start with:
1
Selling Pixels Is Not New, Kind Of
Ever heard of skins in video games?
That’s pretty much the same concept, you buy a skin to change the appearance of your character. And the market for this is insane.
In CS:GO for example, the skin industry market cap stands at a couple of billion dollars.
In a more, let’s say commercial, example, do you guys remember “The Million Dollar Homepage”?
Someone made a website with 1 million pixels, and sold each pixel for one dollar.
Think of it like the internet’s biggest billboard.
But now, with blockchain, things get way more interesting.
So..
2
What Are NFT’s
For those of you who got our bitcoin essentials course, this should be pretty simple.
NFT’s are non-fungible tokens in a blockchain.
For those of you who are not that familiar with how this works, let us explain.
NFT’s are blockchain tokens that offer a certificate of ownership.
They cannot be copied and multiplied.
Also, they are non-fungible, which basically means they are one of a kind.
A dollar for example is fungible. We can give you one dollar, and you give us one dollar back. The value is the same.
The Mona Lisa for example is non-fungible. If we give you the original Mona Lisa and you give us back a copy of it, it’s not the same thing.
So with this in mind, an NFT is basically a form of digital ownership represented as a token in the ethereum blockchain. They can be attached to any kind of content, from photos, music and videos.
Owning the NFT of something, gives you digital ownership rights of that content, allowing you to sell it.
Have you been looking to to get some authentic information about bitcoin? Check out 10 Biggest Misconceptions About Bitcoin.
3
Cryptokitties Lead the Way
The first time NFT’s made headlines was when pixel cats started to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Cryptokitties is a video game based on the Ethereum blockchain, in which you can buy, breed and sell digital cats.
Each Crypto Kitties is represented as an NFT in the blockchain, meaning that they are unique and can be sold within the community using Ethereum as a currency.
According to the reports, some cryptokitties were sold for as much as $300k a piece, and that opened the way for the future of NFT’s.
4
Who Is Beeple
Now that you have an idea of what we’re dealing with, let’s talk about Mike Winelmann, aka Beeple.
He’s a digital artist from Charleston, and according to his website, works on a variety of digital artworks, including short films and VR/AR work.
He also worked on the sets of a number of high profile artists from Justin Bieber to deadmau5.
And probably the most interesting, he’s one of the originators of the “everyday” movement. A trend in which he created a picture every day, for the past 10 years, without skipping a day. Talk about consistency.
You can check out his work at beeple-crap.com
5
The $69 Million Sale
On March 11 2021, Beeple sold the original collage of his first 5000 days of artworks for a whopping $69 Million, in the form of an NFT.
It’s truly a historic moment.
The sale happened through Christie’s Auctions and it marked two first time events.
One, the first action sale of a digital artwork piece and two, the first action sale through the ethereum blockchain.
Beeple had previously sold a video of a digitally illustrated Donald Trump for $6.6 million.
6
His Artwork Is on Louis Vuitton Shirts
Back in 2019, Florent Buonomano, the artistic director at Louis Vuitton, wanted some new color for the following Spring/Summer collection. He saw some of Beeple’s work on instagram and decided to give him a call, or a dm nowadays.
Beeple agreed to let them use his artwork but he had no idea what was about to happen. He said:
“I actually thought they might not end up using them at all. But then a model came out wearing one of my Everydays on her shirt and we were like, ‘Oh My God!’ It was crazy surreal”
7
You Can Watch His Reaction When the Final Bid Was Placed
On Christie’s youtube channel, they added a video of Beeple reacting live to the action taking place. He never expected the bids to go that high.
He was pretty shocked when the price went to 27 million, as you can hear him say
“Jesus Christ, what the f–”
When they showed the final price, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
He added “I think it probably means digital art is here to stay”
8
A Way to Future Proof Your Art
In the internet age, everyone can make a copy of anything and once something gets copied over and over, it loses its value.
Once you post an artwork online it becomes pretty hard to monetize it or to keep track of its original owner or creator.
With NFT’s however, this changes drastically, since they act as a non-duplicable digital certificate of ownership.
That gives you digital rights to resell, distribute or license the digital asset as you please.
It also gives the artist full liberty on how he wants to sell and distribute his artwork without the need to involve a third party.
And you may ask, why would anyone buy an NFT of something when they could just get a free copy online?
The same reason why someone would want an original painting of their favorite artist on their wall, instead of a copy.
9
You Can Make Your Own NFT
NFT’s are popping all over the place right now and people are making serious money.
Anyone can make an NFT out of something, a great example being Logan Paul.
He partnered with crypto exchange Bondly, and made 3000 NFT’s themed around his newly discovered Pokemon passion. They sold for 5 million in total.
Another artist who made a couple of millions out of NFTs is Elon Musk’s girlfriend, Grimes.
On February 28th, she listed 10 pieces of art – some unique and some with multiple copies, on Nifty Gateway, a website for buying and selling NFTs.
The highest selling piece, a video called “Death of the Old”, sold for $389,000.
Combined, her whole collection was sold for $6 million in total.
NBA is another big player fresh in the NFT game.
They just sold a video of LeBron James dunking for $200.000
10
Decentralized Commerce
What NFT’s are leading up to is essentially decentralized commerce.
A marketplace where every transaction happens through smart contracts on a distributed ledger network like Ethereum.
No big player can manipulate the market, push products on the front page or buy fake reviews. Also no one can scam you and send you a rock instead of the new iphone, which apparently happens a lot.
The future is here Aluxers.
Question:
What do you think, is this type of digital ownership here to stay?
Would you buy the NFT album of your favorite artist? Let us know in the comments!
