Written by: Nathaya Athira P. W. and Gian Nathaniel
Designed By: Fransiska L.
Amidst society’s increasing appetite in investing, Non-Fungible Tokens or familiarly known as NFTs become one of the most popular forms of investment nowadays. In this form of NFT, investors are able to tokenize any digital things such as collectible items, artworks, pictures, even music. With these tokens, investors can claim ownership of those specific items, where no official copies of the items are available, nor can they be collectively owned by another person. This exclusivity of NFT might not be so questionable, since it derives from the word non-fungible itself. Non-fungible items are those who are non-interchangeable because they are unique, e.g. a specific file on your computer. On the other hand, fungible items are interchangeable between one and another, because their values are what defined them, not their specificity.
In order to understand how NFT works, we first have to know about Ethereum blockchain. Just like bitcoin or dogecoin, Ethereum is a form of cryptocurrency, but with the addition of NFT storage support. In a public ledger of Ethereum blockchain and with the help of each uniqueID, the ownership of each NFT is recorded, thus investors can easily prove their ownership with no fraud opportunities for others. As it is an investment, if desired, investors are also able to sell their NFT at any time, or otherwise just keep it for the rest of their lives.
As previously mentioned, investors can tokenize any digital items with unique properties. So, can I just sell my selfies? The answer is technically yes, and you wouldn’t even be the first one to do so. Sultan Gustaf Al Ghazali, a computer science student from Semarang, recently converted and sold his over-the-years selfies as NFTs in the OpenSea marketplace, earning a whopping 1.7 billion Rupiah. But even then, this phenomenon doesn’t mean that everyone can start selling their selfies with the hope of gaining the same amount of profit, because the momentum which created a long chain of buyers, therefore increasing the price, doesn’t always happen.
While starting an NFT investment might be daunting, there are only a few steps that need to be done. First off, the investor should start by opening an account in the marketplace of their choice, such as OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateaway, or Mintable. Afterwards, all they need to do is to create an account, fund said account, and choose the NFT of their liking. But before the investor starts to invest in NFT, it might be better for them to know the pros and cons of it first. One of the advantages of NFT investment is that the value has increased significantly in the past years, and with the digital transformation going on, there is a possibility that the recent NFT buzz is only the beginning. On the other hand, NFTs can be considered as static assets that don’t generate any revenue. Furthermore, their value is highly dependent on the market demand, thus they fluctuate fairly often. Due to this fact, it would be wise for investors to first assess their risk profile and invest accordingly.
References:
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Clark, M. (2021, August 19). NFTs, explained: what they are, and why they’re suddenly worth millions. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq
Desk, T. (2022, January 17). Here’s how a 22-year-old made $1 million by selling NFT selfies. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/crypto/heres-how-a-22-year-old-made-1-million-by-selling-nft-selfies-7728112/
Esajian, P. (2021, December 29). How To Invest in NFTs: NFT Investing Explained. FortuneBuilders. https://www.fortunebuilders.com/how-to-invest-in-nfts/
Ethereum. (2022). Non-fungible tokens (NFT). Ethereum.Org. https://ethereum.org/en/nft/#further-reading
Staff, T. A. (2022, January 7). 10 Top NFT Marketplaces. The Motley Fool. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/cryptocurrency/nft-marketplaces/