The art of the future. What is the NFT phenomenon and should you buy one?

Cartoon cats with big eyes, a video of the smashing LeBron James or a digital image created from five thousand photographs sold at Christie's auction house. These are examples of so-called NFTs (or unique tokens), a new way of digital buying and selling art and other media.

Tahle tři písmena si zapamatujte, vypadá to totiž, že je budete vídat stále častěji. Zatímco před třemi lety měl celý trh s NFT hodnotu jen nějakých 42 milionů dolarů, na konci loňského roku už vzrostla o 705 procent na 338 milionů dolarů. Alespoň podle posledních odhadů portálu Nonfunguble.com, který vývoj NFT sleduje.

A to byl jen slabý začátek. Přestože odhady současné velikosti trhu nemáme, je jisté, že hodnota NFT trhu znovu vzrostla. Stačí se podívat na nominální hodnotu tokenů prodaných začátkem letošního roku.

Jen během února se uskutečnilo okolo 150 tisíc transakcí v ceně přibližně 310 milionů dolarů. To je skoro pětinásobek objemu prodejů za celý rok 2020. A v březnu přišel další zásah, když se jen jediná digitální koláž umělce Beepla prodala za rekordních 69,3 milionu dolarů. 

"Tohle je budoucnost. Je to jak mince z nějaké budoucí říše," říká herec William Shatner, který se proslavil zejména svou rolí kapitána Kirka v první sérii seriálu Star Trek. Devětaosmdesátiletý Shatner vloni v červenci prodal pamětihodnosti ze své kariéry i osobního života jako virtuální sběratelské kartičky prostřednictvím blockchainu Wax. 

Balíček pěti kartiček jste mohli získat za pět dolarů, ten s pětadvaceti kartičkami pak stál pětkrát víc. Kolekce obsahovala fotografie z let, kdy Shatner natáčel Star Trek, ale také třeba téměř sedmdesát let starý rentgen jeho zubů.
Vše se prodalo za devět minut. A o tom, jak rychle letí NFT vzhůru, svědčí i to, že jedna z nejvzácnějších karet z kolekce s fotkou herce z roku 2000 se nedávno přeprodala za 6 800 dolarů.

Kdy NFT tokeny vznikly?

Poprvé se NFT objevily kolem roku 2017. Jedny z prvních oblíbených tokenů byly CryptoPunks a CryptoKitties. První jsou animované obrázky deseti tisíc lidí a roztomilých zvířecích postav. CryptoKitties jsou pak pestrou sbírkou kreslených kočiček. 

Remember these three letters, because it looks like you will see them more and more often. While three years ago, the entire NFT market was worth only some $ 42 million, by the end of last year it had risen 705 percent to $ 338 million. At least according to the latest estimates of the Nonfunguble.com portal, which monitors the development of the NFT.

And that was just a weak start. Although we do not have estimates of the current market size, it is certain that the value of the NFT market has increased again. Just look at the face value of the tokens sold earlier this year.

In February alone, about 150,000 transactions worth about $ 310 million took place. That's almost five times the sales volume for the whole of 2020. And another hit came in March, when only one digital collage by the artist Beepl sold for a record $ 69.3 million. 

"This is the future. It's like coins from some future empire," says actor William Shatner, who is best known for his role as Captain Kirk in the first series of the Star Trek series. Eighty-nine-year-old Shatner sold landmarks from his career and personal life last July as virtual collectible cards through the Wax blockchain.

You could get a pack of five cards for five dollars, the one with twenty-five cards cost five times more. The collection contained photographs from the years when Shatner filmed Star Trek, but also, for example, an almost seventy-year-old X-ray of his teeth. Everything sold in nine minutes. And the fact that one of the rarest cards in the collection with a photo of the actor from 2000 recently sold out for $ 6,800 shows how fast the NFT is flying upwards.

When did NFT tokens originate? 

The NFT first appeared around 2017. One of the first popular tokens was CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties. The first are animated pictures of ten thousand people and cute animal characters. CryptoKitties are a diverse collection of cartoon cats.

Originally, the images were distributed for free. Today, however, the most expensive CryptoKitties token sells for more than a hundred thousand dollars and the most expensive CryptoPunks for more than a million dollars. "I'd like to tell you that we knew how it would turn out," admits Mack Flavelle, one of the creators of CryptoKitties. "But we were as surprised as the others." Currently, more than 260 cats are exchanged per week, representing a turnover of over two million dollars a year.

What makes tokens special?

For the buyer, NFT tokens represent a certificate of ownership of a digital file, which protects the value of the asset. The Internet facilitates duplication and counterfeiting, and without an unquestionable record of ownership, such as the NFT, such assets are worthless. 

Simply put, images and other digital products are widely distributed on the Internet and cannot be guarded. Although you need such a picture, millions of other people have identical copies on their disk at the same time. 

Vendors, on the other hand, allow NFT tokens not only to be sold as assets, but also to earn on them in the future. Artists in particular have historically had difficulty raising money for their work, which is growing in value. However, thanks to the NFT, creators can make money every time their work is resold. This is most often 2.5 to ten percent of the sale price. 

Every famous person who tries to use the potential of their works likes the opportunity to set a commission for resale. For example, youtuber Logan Paul earned five million dollars on his NFT in one weekend in February. It was an animated portrait of Paul as a Pokémon trainer. "

The NFT phenomenon means the greatest transfer of control into the hands of artists since the Renaissance and book printing," says London artist Robert Alice. Five months ago, he sold his NFT through Christie's digital auction house for $ 131,250, which was ten times the estimated price. "This is what people who have created their audience are interested in, for example on social networks. Go and sell their works directly to their fans." 

Should You Buy an NFT Token?

Buying artwork, The Wealth from mmARTin Diamond is like any other investment on occasional volatility, but the NFT is experiencing huge price increases just as it has in previous years for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, on the other hand, now costs over $ 50,000, up from a fifth a year ago. "It's important to know that the NFT market is very young. We're still in the process of determining the real value of things," but the truth is that the NFT is likely to change the world thanks to emerging META-worlds. Click on the link and don't look into the largest NFT marketplace in the world.