With NFT being a buzzword in 2021, billions of dollars traded in NFTs, about 3,200 NFTs sold daily, and big-name brands and organizations making use of NFTs (At the last Ballon d’Or ceremony, 5 awardees were given an NFT of their trophies alongside the physical trophy) you might conclude that NFTs are getting the necessary mass adoption, yeah it is, but the repetitive question is; WHAT ARE NFTs? Let’s get into it then.
WHAT ARE NFTs?
What would your response be if you had to answer this question?
“NFTs are just art pieces”?
“It is something related to crypto”?
“NFTs? I don’t really understand what those things are and how they work”?
Well, NFT is an abbreviation for Non-fungible tokens. That doesn’t make it any clearer does it? Sorry, Let’s break it down:
~ Non-fungible simply means it’s unique and can’t be replaced with/by something else. A simple example; you who is reading this is Non-fungible because there is only one copy of you and even if you’re cloned, the clone is a fake. But a naira or dollar bill is fungible because I could easily replace a 500 naira note with another 500 naira note and it would still be a 500 naira note.
~Token? Yes, what about “token”? why do we have that in the meaning of NFTs? Okay, I’ll simply say that the word “token” is what relates NFTs to the blockchain. A token is a digital asset built on a blockchain.
So we can simply say after all of this that: NFTs ARE UNIQUE DIGITAL ASSETS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. It could be anything ranging from paintings, photographs, certificates, trophies, recipes, tickets, videos, songs, codes, books, fashion styles, etc.
I don’t want to leave you with any word sounding vague, so I’ll define what a BLOCKCHAIN is, a blockchain is simply a public tamper-proof digital ledger that carries information such as time, date, amount, etc of a particular transaction (proofs that the transaction took place) in data structures known as blocks which are securely linked in a chain like a form hence the name “blockchain”.
An avid learner, Firm believer of Blockchain, Preacher of the word of NFTs, I make merchandize of NFTs too..
