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Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are currently all the rave with investors, but lately, NFTs (nonfungible tokens) have grabbed the spotlight.
Now, you might be asking what the hell is an NFT? Well, per the New York Times, an NFT is defined as “an asset verified using blockchain technology, in which a network of computers records transactions and gives buyers proof of authenticity and ownership. The current boom is mostly for digital assets, including images, GIFs, songs, or videos. Most importantly, NFTs make digital artworks unique, and therefore sellable.”
So why should NFTs be on your radar?
You should be paying attention to NFTs becuase it is quickly becoming artists, musicians, influencers, and sports franchise’s way to monetize digital properties that are cheap or free. It’s specifically paying huge dividends in the art world. Just recently, artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold an NFT for his purely digital piece of art at a record-breaking $69 million, making it the third-highest price fetched by a living artist.
It’s also a big deal because the digital art piece was auctioned off through Christie’s, a premier auction house.
Now here’s the thing, because you bought the NFT for said piece of art, it doesn’t mean you solely own it, but it does give you and any other person with an internet connection and willing to make investments in the art piece a claim of it.
Beeple is not alone on the NFT wave, Twitter CEO and now the majority owner of Tidal, Jack Dorsey, is auctioning off his first tweet ever as an NFT through a timed auction. Astoundingly the highest bid hit $2.5 million by Thursday. We have no clue why someone would want to pay that much for it, but again this just proves that NFTs are quickly taking over.
The craze for NFTs also helped domain name entrepreneur Mike Mann sell digitalartists.com for a six-figure amount on Thursday (Mar.11), Benzinga reports. He boasted about moving the domain for $300,000 via a tweet.
Digital artists/scientists sold https://t.co/EbOWBLSxE1 $300,000.
— Mike Mann (@mikemanndotcom) March 10, 2021
It sounds like NFTs is something we should all be paying close attention to.
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