NFT hype won't last long

Imagine what if Mona Lisa would have to be sold on NFT? 🤔

Mar 23, 2021

You might have heard awfully a lot about NFTs for the past few months, popping up here and there, and talks about thousands and millions of dollars.

They are really facinating, so here’s a little background:

NFTs or Non-fungible tokens are the assets that can be identified as unique. They are digital items with blockchain equivalent of any pieces such as digital arts, games, domains, music, and even ownership records of physical assets.

Basically, if this newsletter is unique I can NFT this newsletter. Would I actually? NO. 🙂

I’m not going deep down talking about NFTs and how it works because you can find them everywhere on the internet. But talk about the other side which is less talked about.

NFT market is just getting started. They are becoming huge and are quite fascinating.

But they are complicated
And are involved with the crypto world, where only 3% of the world’s population is interacting.

So basically, you can only use crypto to buy and sell NFTs and in a very short time period, many websites have been created to work with it.

An explosive part of the crypto enthusiastic are collecting art through NFTs and there’s going to be a huge impact on cryptocurrency. These NFTs are selling for millions and show no sign of slowing down.

Though it's not known if the average person would be able to get involved in it or not, till then the tech world is enjoying it and making profits.

So, it got me thinking, why so much hype?

You know what, these arts are selling for millions on NFTs. People can really go crazy about these:

Beeple’s Everyday: The First 5,000 Days (2021) was sold for $69 million.
An animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart body leaving a rainbow trail, known as Nyan Cat was sold for $580,000.
Lindsay Lohan sold a photo of herself for $17k.
People are bidding thousands over Elon Musk and Mark Cuban’s tweets.
Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for just over $2.9 million.

First one is Beeple’s Everyday: The first 5000 days & second is animated flying cat with Pop-tart body leaving a rainbow trail.

The one thing that’s stuck in my mind is: why would one buy NFTs?

Other than it’s way too hot in the market right now, it’s actually a great way to bet on a creator’s potential to grow. It’s like this: if you buy an artist’s work at a low price today and after a few months or a year that artist becomes famous, you can sell it at a much higher price.

Yes, it’s way too risky as you don’t know when and if that artist will become popular. And there’s a high risk of losing your money.

But it’s good to see that artists are getting paid for their crafts more through NFT than the traditional form. Artists and creator networks are shifting towards the NFT marketplace where they get a much better value of their work, directly.

“They give the ability to a fan to purchase an asset that is scarce, that is limited, that is exclusive, and has potential offerings tied to that that make them as a loyal fan feel unique, feel rewarded.” - says Shara Senderoff.

This crypto thing can be silly (at least for me) but it empowers and encourage the artists and gives them access to the global art market, the way it wasn't done before.

Dani @dnmpss

Before NFTs: Did you really own your content? Suppose you're a talented musician. You upload a new song to Spotify and it gets 1 million plays (a hit!). Intermediaries take most of your earnings.

It has so much hype right now, the same way bitcoin had once, that it feels like it will slow down in the future but won't disappear. It's probably a bubble as richer get rich because the people who have capital are in the position to get the most out of it.

For most people, it's just an overwhelming feeling of getting into the trend (FOMO).

👇🏻 This poll has a lot to say, people have different prespectives and views.

Indie Hackers @IndieHackers

What do you think about NFTs? ✨

That’s the reason why the hype won’t last long:

Ben Rathi @theRealBenRathi

The Paradox of NFTs: “NFTs have value because they are scarce. But NFTs are so easy to make now, the scarcity is abundant.” -@ShaanVP

The few drawbacks that I see in NFTs

The biggest, they involve crypto, not many people like to get involved in it.
It has some huge hidden fees or say gas fees for the once, who are selling their art.
What if the work is copied piece of art? How do you authenticate the ownership?
NFT is not providing scarcity to digital art. They have several built-in functions, when you buy art you don't get the rights to it.
NFTs are first converted in a JPEG file and you're NOT buying the digital file but simply a link to the digital file. It's bad that it's only limited to a unique format.

No wonder they are cool, but let’s see how long the hype lasts.