What NFTs Are and What They Mean for Us? By Joseph Devine Recently, a new trend has taken off in financial circles and online. You may have heard news about digital pieces of art being sold for, sometimes, tens of millions of dollars. You’ve also probably heard these pieces of art be referred to as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. However, many still struggle to really identify what an NFT is, or what it’s for. To understand NFTs, it is important to understand the system they exist in. NFTs are part of a blockchain, which is a large, decentralized set of highly protected data. These blockchains protect data and make it available to only those authorized to view it. Blockchains can be used for many different purposes, but the two most well-known applications are cryptocurrency and NFTs. A cryptocurrency is essentially a digital currency protected by the blockchain and not created by a central authority. This makes the cryptocurrency extremely difficult to counterfeit, as well as relatively free of governmental influence. Likewise, an NFT is a piece of digital content which has been embedded in the blockchain for Etherium, a cryptocurrency. Being embedded in the blockchain makes NFTs, be they pieces of art, documents, or any other information, completely unique and identifiable. This makes the owner of the NFT verifiable, making the actual ‘ownership’ of digital content possible . Many, such as Mitchell Clark from The Verge, liken it to owning the original of a famous painting. Despite the numerous copies 18
thecityinsightmag.com
