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NFTs & Trends To Watch Out For Today

NFTs & Trends To Watch Out For Today

NFTs

Here at Camsoda, we cover a lot of different topics and trends. Many of them are well established, others are new or up and coming. One of those latest trends is referred to as NFTs. We actually auctioned one off here at Camsoda.com. I’ll get into that later though. Time to cover the basics. Have you heard about NFTs? My guess is yes. If so, that’s great for you, as I’ll be covering the most recent NFT trends that are happening today. For those of you who are hearing this acronym for the very first time, I’ll explain what they are and why these have become such a mainstream trend. Let’s begin…

What Are NFTs?

NTFs is a cryptocurrency phenomenon that went mainstream and gained a lot of traction in the last few months. In fact, just a few short months back, Christie’s auction house sold the first NFT artwork by digital artist Mike Winklemann known as Beeple, for an impressive $69.3 million. Since then, many people have taken a closer look at the NFT trend and have wanted a piece of the action. Rightly so, right!

To put it as simple as possible, NFT (non-fungible token) is any digital asset that represents a real-world object: it can be art, music, videos, games, and other digital items. These NFTs are sold and bought online daily. They’re encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptocurrencies and are paid mainly with cryptocurrency.

To simplify things: any digital asset with a unique encoding that can be sold is considered an NFT. For example, the Nyan Cat GIF was sold for $600K, and the first tweet sent by Jack Dorsey went for over $2.9M. For a digital asset to be considered NFT, it has to be one of a kind or part of a limited run and must have an identifying code.

Do you see the difference between regular digital art and NFT digital assets? As a rule, a digital creation is almost always in infinite supply, as you can make another copy with just a click of a button. The NFTs cannot be copied as such, but they can be put on display for everyone to enjoy.

If you think about the appeal behind paying hundreds or even millions of dollars for a digital item, you need to think like a collector. The NFT asset has a built-in authentication, and it serves as proof of ownership; it’s like owning the property rights for that asset. This proof is exactly what every NFT collector values, as well as the digital bragging rights for the NFT asset.

An NFT asset is a collectible digital item. For example, instead of having a painting on the wall, the owner gets a digital file with the NFTs unique data markers. The appeal of NFTs is that an NFT can have only one owner at a time, and often the NFTs contain specific information about the asset.

So, that’s the basic lesson on NFTs 101. Now, time to get into how they work, but first, here’s the official definition. 

Definition Of NFT Assets

NFT stands for a non-fungible token. As stated above, the NFT assets are created with the same technology and programming as cryptocurrencies, but this is all they are alike. The term fungible is vital here, as physical money and cryptocurrencies are fungible. It means that they are equal in value: one Bitcoin is always equal to another Bitcoin, and one dollar is always equal to another dollar. Also, they can be traded and exchanged for one another.

Unlike these, the NFT assets are non-fungible – each has a digital signature that makes it impossible for an NFT to be exchanged for or be equal to another NFT. So, for example, an NBA Top Shot clip is not equal to another NBA Top Shot clip or another NFT asset: no two NFTs are the same.

How Do NFTs Work?

At this time, NFTs are held on the Ethereum blockchain, but not exclusively, as some other blockchains support NFTs as well. For those that don’t know what a blockchain is: this is a distributed public ledger that records transactions. In layman’s terms, the blockchain is the process that enables the creation and use of cryptocurrencies.

An NFT is created from digital objects that can be tangible and intangible items like art, GIFs, collectibles, virtual avatars & video game skins, videos and sports highlights, music, and objects like designer sneakers. Tweets also fall in this category, and as we noted above, Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet as an NFT asset for over $2.9M. There are lots of things to be bought and sold for lots of money or cryptocurrency I should say.

Camsoda NFT Auction

The Appeal

The NFTs work as any other speculative asset – people buy them and hope that the value goes up one day, and the asset can be sold for profit. Considering the popularity of the NFT trend, many are catching the fever, similar to the famous speculation craze called tulip mania. 

I mentioned that we recently held an NFT auction on CamSoda. We held an online auction offering a rare CryptoPunk 7060 NFT asset to the highest bidder. To take part in the auction, each person needed to deposit $1 in cryptocurrency on the CamSoda account. Guess what, that NFT ended up selling for $200K to the lucky bidder. 

The specific NFT sold here on CamSoda is only one of 10,000 CryptoPunks; 24 x 24-pixel art images made in 8-bit style. Each of these CryptoPunks is different, with distinct features, and the creators, Larva Labs, gave away 9,000 of them and kept 1,000 for them. Needless to say, the CryptoPunks are now sought-after NFT assets, as each has a unique number and attributes. There are other CryptoPunks that have sold for close to $1M.

How To Make And Sell An NFT Asset?

It seems like all that talk about putting unexpectedly high prices on digital assets has inspired many people to get on the NFTs bandwagon. Anyone can indeed create an NFT asset – it’s not that difficult.

You will need a digital wallet, a small amount of Ethereum cryptocurrency, and a connection to an NFT marketplace. Once your digital art piece is completed, you need to upload it to the NFT marketplace and turn the content into NFT artwork with a unique authentication code. The different marketplaces have specific rules on converting digital art into NFT. 

You also need to put your asking/suggested price and include any particulars about the asset. The NFTs are usually purchased in Ethereum, but there are other supported tokens as well. From there, once your NFTs sell, you will get your piece of the sale.

How To Buy An NFT Asset?

It’s pretty simple to buy an NFT if you know where to look. But, first, you need to decide which marketplace you’ll visit and what type of digital wallet is required to store your digital asset in. Also, you should know that you need cryptocurrency to pay for it.

At this time, there are several online places where you can go and buy NFTs. These include OpenSea, Mintable, Nifty Gateway, Rarible, Zora, and more. 

  • OpenSea.io is a peer-to-peer platform that “deals with rare digital items and collectibles.” Each user needs only to create an account and can browse the assets on the site.
  • Rarible is similar to OpenSea and is an open marketplace enabling artists and creators to issue and sell NFTs. The platform issues RARI tokens to pay for fees and consider community rules.
  • Foundation is another NFT platform, and it is invite-only for artists and creators. Also, the exclusive community has an entry fee. This NFT marketplace is for more high-caliber work: the Nyan Cat was sold via Foundation for $600K.

In addition, there are niche marketplaces for specific NFTs like NBA Top Shots and Valuables. If you’re a novice, then you should be aware of the fees charged by these places. For example, some charge a “gas” fee, while others include the exchange free from USD to Ethereum (the most commonly used cryptocurrency to buy NFTs).

Due to the rise in popularity of the NFT assets, new digital platforms explicitly devoted to NFT assets have finally emerged. Here are five such platforms that expect to gain a lot of traction in 2021:

  • Binance NFT is expected to be an NFT marketplace and trading platform that plans to bring together artists, creators, and crypto-enthusiasts from all over the world. This one could be a big one.
  • CHAIR is doing all it can to become the first decentralized NFT trading platform with tokenized rights and benefits to mint utility NFTs and works on establishing a new trading system based on the decentralized technology concept.
  • NFT20 is not yet active, but it promises to be the top place for NFT assets once released.
  • Splyt works on a slightly different premise, representing real-world items that can be presented as eNFTs. The brands and sellers will list their products as eNFTs, creating a globally updating blockchain inventory system. Each eNFT item has a certificate of authenticity to protect against knock-offs. The history of sales sticks with the certificate as a precaution protocol, keeping track of reputation.
  • AnRKey X is an NFT platform, an all-in-one gaming platform and one where in-game items can be bought, sold, and traded. The purchases of NFTs are made via ANRX arcade tokens which are earned on the platform.

To Wrap Up: Should You Buy NFTs?

Well, it is up to you whether you should invest your cash into a digital asset that no one knows how it will develop in the future. NFTs are risky, and we don’t know a lot about them. Still, like other speculative bubbles through history, you should do your extensive research, understand all the risks involved and proceed with caution.

If you wish to invest your money, that is your decision, but whatever you choose, please be sure that your decision is well thought out. Please note, we are not professional advisors and we cannot provide you with advice on what to invest in, but if you have any questions about NFTs and the platforms in general we’re certainly glad to help!

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