NFTs: The Future of Digital Ownership or a Passing Fad?
NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens are a great innovation in the digital world and can be seen as a revolutionary invention that changes the perception of ownership. Different from the tokens which are tradeable and are used interchangeably, NFTs are individual and have attributes of a unique asset that is recorded on the blockchain.
NFTs have helped transform the art world for artists who paint digital art for they can now sell them directly and get a cut each time they are resold. To the collectors, it offers an opportunity to own unique digital assets ranging from arts, music, and other virtual such as real estates. Another sector that NFT has revolutionized is gaming since people are now buying, selling, and even trading the characters, weapons and even land in such games.
Conversely however, the introduction of NFTs has not come without its share of both positive and/or negative comments. The concerns about sustainability of blockchain networks, especially those operating with help of the proof-of-work consensus algorithms such as Ethereum, started appearing. Some are complaining that the process of minting and trading of NFTs is energy-intensive and that it breeds climate change, others advocating for green NFTs.
Furthermore, and significantly, the market for NFTs has been significantly volatile, that is, prices of the digital assets have been going up and down. This makes speculation of NFTs questionable due to their sustainability as we saw in the analysis of NFTs. There are many legal and copyright aspects to consider, for instance, owning an NFT does not give the buyer a copyright to the work it symbolizes.
This means as NFTs progress forward they offer new forms of ownership and value structures within the digital era. In any case, whether these tools are modern manifestations of the future of digital assets, or they have exhausted their potential already, it is clear that they have changed the ways of interacting with digital content. NFTs are still a hot topic of discussion, and people don’t even know what they have in terms of benefits or drawbacks.
