In my first article as the Technology Editor, I covered the history and an explanation of Bitcoin. At that time, cryptocurrencies were all the rage. While they still are very popular, the new internet trend is a twitter profile picture of your expensive NFT. My job as the Technology Editor is to educate you about, well,  technology, which is why today you are reading about non-fungible tokens, aka NFTs. 

 NFTs have exploded over the past few years. With many celebrities and influencers pushing NFTs towards the mainstream media, the attention to NFTs has increased greatly. While most people do not actually know what an NFT is (or how it works), they have most likely heard the term before.

Originally invented in 2013 as the coloured coin, the non-fungible token is a digital token which is stored on a blockchain. This digital token could be a drawing, gif, song, or item in a video game. A NFT can be one-of-a-kind, like a real life painting you would find in a museum, or a mint of an item, like trading cards.

Minting is a process where one NFT is duplicated multiple times and given a mint number before it is stored in a blockchain. The lower the minted number, the more valuable it is. For example, if I have a minted NFT with the number 01 it is worth more money than an NFT with the number 99. This is also true with playing cards, collectable coins, or other collectibles.  

Opensea.io is one of the most (if not the most) popular NFT buying and selling platform on the internet. Here you can browse and purchase artwork, mints, or whatever your heart desires. Etherium (or ETH) is the crypto currency used to purchase NFTs, currently valued at $4371. 

In ancient days, the earliest form of trade was barter. People would receive goods by trading cattle and hides. This is reflected in Genesis 21:28–30: “Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves” (in connection with the settlement with Abimelech in Beersheba) and Genesis 13:2. These days, we barter for luxury items, not necessities. 

Many famous people such as Snoop Dogg and Usain Bolt have bought NFTs, bringing more attention to the world of non-fungible tokens. Some celebrities and influencers have even been selling their own NFTs, including William Shatner, who recently launched his own NFT trading card collection. From acting in Star Trek to being the oldest person in space, this guy never seems to surprise us. Some millionaires have even spent insane amounts of money on NFTs, with the most expensive NFT, CryptoPunk number 9998, selling at a whopping $523 million USD. 

Can’t anyone just screenshot the NFT and have it for themselves? I mean, sure, go ahead.  A Pirate Bay spin off “The NFT Bay” has archived over seventeen terabytes of NFTs. Although you would have the NFT saved, it is a similar concept to having fake shoes or fake playing cards (or even a fake Mona Lisa). When the item is stored in a blockchain, it is linked to your ETH wallet. This is the same as having a receipt to verify the authenticity of your shoes, a certificate to verify the authenticity of your playing cards, or an auction paper stating that you, yes you, in fact are the owner of the Mona Lisa.