What is an NFT? What does NFT stand for?

You may wonder what an NFT is. Don’t be scared or get confused. In this article, you will have the answers to basic questions regarding NFTs. NFT (Non-fungible tokens) are unique tokens that exist on a blockchain and cannot return with something else. NFTs can represent digital or real-world items like artwork and real estate.

That doesn’t make it any clearer.

Right, sorry. “Non-fungible” more or less means that it’s unique and can’t return with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible — trade one for another, and you’ll have the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. You’d have something completely different if you traded it for another card. You gave up a Squirtle and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls the “Mona Lisa Of Baseball Cards (I’ll take their word for How do NFTs work?

I’ll take their word for How do NFTs work? At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain, though other blockchains have implemented their version of NFTs. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also keeps track of who’s holding and trading NFTs.

Can you do a quick rundown of what the blockchain is?

Well, they’re pretty complex, but the basic idea is that blockchains are a way to store data without having to trust any one company or entity to keep things secure and accurate. There are nuances and exceptions, which you can read about in our blockchain explainer, but when most people say “blockchain,” that’s the kind of tech they’re talking about. There’s also much nuance about whether NFTs are on the blockchain, which we’ll dig into.

So do people think this will be the future of collecting

I’m sure some people hope so — like whoever paid almost $390,000 for a 

50-second video by Grimes or the person who paid $6.6 million for a video by Beeple. One of Beeple’s pieces auctioned at Christie’s, the famous—

Sorry, I was busy right-clicking on that Beeple video and downloading the same file the person paid millions of dollars for.

Wow, rude. But yeah, that’s the awkward bit. You can copy a digital file as many times as you want, including the art included with an NFT.

But NFTs are designed to give you something that can’t be copied: ownership of the work (though the artist can still retain the copyright and reproduction rights, just like with physical artwork). In terms of physical art collecting: anyone can buy a Monet print. But only one person can own the original.