NFT Mania
On March 11, 2021, a piece of art called “Everydays: The First 5000 Days:” was sold online for a whopping 42,329.453 Ether. Which at the time was equal to a staggering $69,346,250 USD. That’s crazy! The art is a collage of an artist’s (Beeple) first 5,000 drawings and how his art transformed through time. But still, $69 million is a lot for a collage. Well, I hate to break it to y’all, but the world has officially gone crazy. So how in the world did a image so simple and plain sell for millions of dollars? It was all thanks to NFTs.
What are NFTs?
NFT stands for non-fungible token. When something is fungible, it means that it always holds the same value as another one. For example, a $10 bill always holds the same value as another $10 bill. Non- Fungible means that the cost isn’t always the same for another thing of the same type. A diamond will not have the same value as another diamond because it will have qualities that add or subtract to the value. Non-fungible tokens are basically a stamp of ownership that is saved in blockchain.
Now back to the first 5000 days. Why would someone pay so much money for such a simple piece of art? Y’know, in a way, NFTs are very similar to the stock market. People bid on stocks whose companies might grow. The same concept works on NFTs. if a buyer thinks that they have a shot of buying it low and selling high, they will buy it. If the piece of art has potential, it gets put into someone’s shopping cart within days.
The NFT process
Uploading your first NFT will take time. NFTs are sold on an online art platform such as Rarible or open sea. In the data bases, you could either choose to sell your piece as a original copy, or as one of a certain number of copies. Then, it will ask you if you want it to have a fixed price, or a auction starting price. Each Platform will have a uploading fee. I took this wonderful opportunity to put some of my artwork on the web as an NFT as well.
Types of things sold as NFTs:
NFTs don’t need to paintings. People are also selling GIFs and videos for crazy prices as NFTs too. A perfect example of this is the famous Nyan cat GIF. This poptart- bodied cat was a Youtube sensation in 2011 and now, the owner sold it as a GIF for 300 ether or $531k. Another popular NFT type are memes. An example of this is the meme that went viral when a yearbook picture of a kid with braces and a plaid vest known as “bad-luck Brian”. This meme was sold for $36k by its owner as a NFT. Some NFT’s don’t even need to be art! In 2006, Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of twitter released his first tweet: “Just setting up my twttr,” Later, this tweet was sold for a crazy 2.9 MILLION dollars.
The world of online paintings has been revolutionized by NFTs. Though we may be going into a world of craziness, NFT trade is a once in-a lifetime opportunity.
