Everything seems to be virtual these days. Instead of going to the cinema or video store, we let streaming tell us what to watch. Instead of going to a retail store, we just go to Amazon like it’s instinct. Even money is virtual, with cryptocurrency being the latest craze. When it seemed crypto was the biggest Ponzi scheme in an idiotic exercise to see who can be the most overbearing, NFTs said, “Hold my pixelated beer” and took the crown.
For those who don’t know, NFT stands for non-fungible tokens. Basically, they are digital works of art that are often bought and sold for cryptocurrencies Forbes Magazine. Cryptocurrency and NFTs use the same type of software, primarily blockchain, a digital ledger that tracks all transactions across thousands of computers, making them nearly impossible to hack unlike banks or corporations.
While NFTs and cryptocurrencies are often linked when talking about virtual trading, there are major differences between them.
However, unlike a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, each NFT is uniquely encoded. Imagine a bitcoin is a dollar bill, you know, something real that really matters. Although each dollar bill is technically different, they can easily be exchanged for one another. NFTs are like each dollar bill having a different color, paper quality, length, width, design, and different people and landmarks on it.
NFTs are also not equivalent. While you can trade one bitcoin for another bitcoin because they have the same value, trying to trade NFTs is like trading art in a gallery, one painting just won’t be worth as much as another.
Creating them is easy enough. All you need is a knack for graphic design. Virtually anything digital can be sold as an NFT, including social media posts, photos, and GIFs.
At least cryptocurrency has a point of replacing money. What is the point of an NFT? Look beautiful? If so, why can’t they be physical? Art can be made on the computer and then produced physically or at least sold online. There’s great art out there, but popular NFTs are hardly worth the money. They’re less like art and more like the standard logos you would use for your Netflix profile. Actually, the one with a cigarette-smoking monkey with laser vision was pretty cool.
Adding to their stupidity, NFTs consume a ridiculous amount of energy due to blockchain technology. The average transaction of NFTs consumes 35 kilowatt hours, which is equivalent to a month’s worth of electricity from a refrigerator border group.
One voice against NFTs is artist Joanie Lemercier, who found that “my release of 6 CryptoArt works in 10 seconds used more power than the entire studio has in the past 2 years,” according to Lemercier’s website.
Although the youth want to save the planet, we seem bent on destroying it too. Say what you will about older generations who ruthlessly burned coal and produced greenhouse gases, at least to make tangible things. NFTs are nothing.
NFT creators also violate copyright law by taking online artworks and social media posts and turning them into NFTs to benefit from the work of others. Actor William Shatner expressed concern on Twitter last year that people might take his tweets and sell them as NFTs.
Since social media posts are copyrighted and the intellectual property of the people posting them, any attempt to steal them and use them for financial gain would be considered copyright theft yang law.
So we can’t buy anything from them, because when their value is exhausted, they are no longer used. I’m willing to bet five bucks that this was all a scam perpetrated by a 15 year old just trying to see how stupid people are that got out of control. And that’s five American Dollars, not the currency used by Elon Musk.
The people who sell NFTs are the new snake oil salesmen from the Old West, but at least they had a sense of showmanship with the cart, hat, and twirling mustache.