What is an NFT and How Does It Work? A Guide on Non-Fungible Tokens

NFTs are a relatively new concept to many, but have been polarizing in the crypto community.

Some sources say that the concept of NFC dates back to 2006. However, one of the milestones was when Counterparty released the first NFT protocol. In 2016, Melanie Swan, wrote about the idea in her book “Blockchain: Blueprint For A New Economy.” The original purpose was to create a new form of ownership, or identity on the blockchain through non-fungible tokens. One year later, CryptoKitties became an early example of successful use cases for NFTs.

NIFTY conference in Hong Kong is where NFTs really got put on the map. The Nifty 50 was created to focus on blockchain startups,  discuss non-fungible tokens, collectables, and blockchain gaming. Following Christie’s auction house’s sale of the first NFT artwork, a collage of photographs by digital artist Beeple for 69.3 million dollars, NFTs have suddenly captivated the world’s attention to go mainstream.

So, what is NFT?

NFT stands for non-fungible tokens, and these tokens can be used to represent ownership of digital or physical assets on the blockchain. NFTs use cryptography to create unique items that cannot be copied, which makes them interesting, because they are scarce. NFTs can represent anything that has value, including digital assets, virtual goods, real world assets or even other cryptocurrencies. For example, you could purchase an NFT for a special occasion, like a birthday! The NFT would then forever exist on the blockchain with all data intact including any photos associated with it, even if it was removed from the Internet years ago!

Let’s talk about how you can create and sell your own NFTs.

To get started, you need to have your content ready, a digital wallet, Ethereum and a connection to an NFT marketplace. There, you’ll be able to upload and turn the content into an NFT.

For the content, you may use any multimedia file, like a digital painting, photo, music, video file or even a digital document!

For wallets, the easiest one to use is “MetaMask”. You can download one on your iPhone or Android smartphone, Then, simply follow the instructions on how to add funds there. Some other wallets are Math Wallet, Coinbase, Trust Wallet and Alpha Wallet.

Once you created your wallet, the next step is to pick a marketplace. As mentioned before, there you’ll be able to upload and create your NFT. The most popular ones are Open Sea, Rarible or Mintable. Open See is free to use, and there is no moderation, so you may start there. To sign up, you’ll use your digital wallet, for example Meta Mask. Then, follow the instructions there to set your NFTs for trade.

What is a process to create NFTs?

Once you have a blockchain and some software, you can start creating NFTs. The first step is to create a token contract. This is a piece of software that will create and manage your tokens. You’ll need to give it some parameters like the total supply of tokens, how they can be transferred, and any other rules you want to include.

Once you have your token contract created, you can start minting tokens. This simply means taking your digital asset and converting it into digital units on the blockchain. There are a few different ways to do this, but the most common method is called “tokenization.” Tokenization takes an asset, and splits it up into small pieces that can be stored and traded on a blockchain. Each individual piece is called a “token”.

After you have created NFT tokens, you can send them to other users. Since tokens are unique and non-fungible, each one is associated with an individual NFT owner’s address. This means that even if someone else has a similar NFT as yours, it isn’t the same one because they have their own unique identifier on the blockchain.

Any individual may trade or sell identical items at various prices based off of supply and demand economics. For example, let’s say there are two digital paintings in existence: One by Van Gogh that was sold for 60 million dollars (price set by previous owners). Another painting produced by another artist who decides to put her painting up for sale using your NTF contract  for 100 NFTs. If someone were to purchase the NFT for their own collection, they would have a piece of digital art that is worth approximately 0.016% of Van Gogh’s painting.

So what is the future for the NFTs? 

The NTF market is still new, and its potential isn’t fully known yet. But it’s clear that NFTs are here to stay. There seems to be no limit on what kind of experiences we can create utilizing NFTs, down the line as well. What do you think? Share your thoughts about NFT tokens and where you see them going in the comments below!

I hope this coverage was useful for you! Kindly share your NFT experiences with us! Also, spread the word about Vezoverse TV, a digital channel, where reporters are presented as 3D characters like me!

I am Lesl Krestov, a digital reporter from Vezoverse TV, Vezoverse City, Vezoverse.

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