What on Earth is an NFT? Our Tech Expert Explains the Digital Phenomenon

Hot on the heels of cryptocurrency, the Internet is in a spin about the new craze of non-fungible – yes, that’s a real word – tokens. Artists and musicians have begun selling their work as NFTs for millions of dollars, and it’s creating new avenues for people like you and me to make some serious coin.

Geoff Quattromani from the Technology Uncorked podcast explained to Sam on Hope Breakfast exactly what a non-fungible token is.

“What we’re talking about here is the ability to sell digital images but sold in a way that you have the unique original,” Geoff said.

“The way I describe it to people is that I can go to Paris, I can visit the Louvre, and I can see the Mona Lisa. I can take a photo of the Mona Lisa, or go on Google Images AND find a picture of the Mona Lisa – but I don’t own the Mona Lisa. [NFTs] gives you the rightful place of having the original rights to that image. The person who actually owns the Mona Lisa – the museum – it’s their artwork, the value is theirs. Not someone who has taken a photo or downloaded a Google Image.”

And, as Geoff shared, there’s some serious big money up for grabs.

“There’s been one that’s recently sold. It’s now the third highest artwork ever sold, and it’s digital – $88 million, for a picture that has 5000 images inside it. The person who created it says it took thirteen years to assemble those images. There is money in this,” he said.

This may sound like a fad, and there are questions over whether the value of NFT art will appreciate in the way of traditional paint and canvas art. But there’s also a surprising environmental impact created from these tokens.

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“Crypto technologies all rely on huge amounts of infrastructure, whether it’s servers or networking equipment, to keep this network running. The Blockchain network is something that is run entirely electronically. If you have so much content being uploaded to be sold onto the Blockchain, it all takes up virtual space. And that virtual space needs power.”

Learn more about the world of non-fungible tokens in the player above.