An NFT is a digital record, like a receipt, proving ownership of something (either physical or digital) such as a collectable item, like the pixelated drawing on a Punk Alien. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a record of when the item was created – or minted to use NFTs unique terminology – how much was paid for it, including previous sales – as an NFT can be exchanged\/traded on NFT marketplaces – and details of any specific attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point you might be thinking – so what? What\u2019s the difference between the Punk Alien and any digital image, such as the one at the top of this article, that can be traced to a server located somewhere on the internet? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is different about NFTs is the way they are created, and the qualities this gives them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minting an NFT, means creating a new record on a decentralised blockchain, in the case of Crypto Punks this is Ethereum, but NFTs can be minted on other blockchains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the fundamental qualities of a decentralised blockchain is that the data they hold is immutable; in other words, it cannot be changed. No one can amend the information associated with an NFT, it is a unique unchangeable record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In comparison to tokens that are intended to be fungible, and exchangeable for items with identical characteristics, non-fungible tokens are designed so that they cannot simply be duplicated and exchanged for an identical item. NFTs reflect ownership of a unique item, as recorded by a blockchain, for which there isn\u2019t an interchangeable equivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an agreed programming standard on Ethereum called ERC-721 – emulated by other blockchains – that sets out the parameters to ensure a record is non-fungible, just as there is a standard for fungible tokens – ERC-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is important to distinguish the record from the image, as an NFT doesn\u2019t necessarily represent the item itself. Images can be stored on a blockchain, but an NFT might simply indicate where the item exists, such as the URL of a piece of digital art, photo or the location of a physical asset. This is the same with analogue receipts or certificates of authenticity that prove ownership and provenance of physical collectables – like an autographed album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The appeal of NFTs is that they are early examples of a revolutionary new technology that is likely to become hugely significant, while at the same time encapsulating the cultural phenomenon that surrounds that technology in artistic form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An NFT is a digital record, like a receipt, proving ownership of something (either physical or digital) such as a collectable item, like the pixelated drawing on a Punk Alien. It is a record of when the item was created – or minted to use NFTs unique terminology – how much was paid for it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mudassirbackup.infinitycodestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}