Between Bitcoin, pandemics, K-pop, and Twitter actually innovating, NFTs hit the scene at a very confusing time for humanity.
If, like me, you woke up this morning to the headline, ‘Rock band Kings of Leon will release new album as an NFT’, then, like me, you may have some questions:
- Kings of Leon still make music?
- What the hell is an NFT?
No seriously, what’s an NFT?
My head editor didn’t think I’d be brave enough to tackle this complicated question, but the joke’s on him because while I may not be brave, I am definitely stupid enough; so here we go:
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a new type of digital asset, but unlike most virtual currencies such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, you cannot simply sell one NFT for another. Each NFT is a unique piece of currency and acts as a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated, making them rare by design. Did you ever collect baseball or Pokemon cards as a kid? I was more into ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ myself, but think of NFTs as a crypto alternative to that.
So, how do you get ‘value’ from this?
Well, these collectible cryptocurrencies are put on the blockchain and auctioned off to collectors or speculators. If you’re not sure what a ‘blockchain’ is, it’s a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across a database. The blockchain will then record who the original owner of the piece is, therein giving value to the NFT.
So, now you know what NFTs are — sorta’ — you can probably read that Kings of Leon headline with a bit more understanding. Basically, they’ll be offering their latest album package with a vinyl and digital download for a token priced at $50.
If you’re still utterly confused by all of this, I wouldn’t blame you, but you can read up on NFT’s in greater detail in this article by The Information.
If you do understand though, tell us @MyWallStHQ what you think a MyWallSt NFT should look like!
MyWallSt operates a full disclosure policy. MyWallSt staff currently holds long positions in companies mentioned above. Read our full disclosure policy here.