NFT’s; Let’s Redefine Value

If you’re stranded in the desert and I offered you a bottle of water or a Crypto Punk or even the Mona Lisa for that matter, I think we can all guess where the actual value lies.

Try to keep the focus on the big picture. An NFT is not an individual trick. Yes, you can invest in NFT’s but that’s not the main purpose. Just like you can trade Apple stock, it doesn’t change the fact that Apple is more than a stock to trade.

The big picture is that of life shifting towards online more and more. We are basically already living in the Metaverse, we just use 2D assets like Instagram and LinkedIn to create ‘other’ lives (calling it ‘other’ because we muck it up with filters and greater stories than we are actually living). In that shift towards online living, we are missing rightful ownership. Google earns money with my data and Instagram earns money because I create content. Meanwhile, I should be getting paid. And so, in order to credit actual ownership of digital assets, NFT’s are key.

So basically. The worth of an NFT is determined by the people trading it. If one decides they want to look good in Fortnite or other games, then a limited skin has a certain value. But the most important aspect is being able to create a smart contract for a digital product. Be it a skin to flex in Fortnite, or as some form of payment to reward added value by a digital creator. The current Web (2.0) is focused on businesses that are built on top of other platforms, making it unable to own them. Like having a huge Instagram page or using the Twitter API to build a business. NFT is basically a smart contract for future creators to build something for themselves.

So it’s not the specific asset nor the flex. It’s the functionality and how that can be used to redistribute attribution in the digital world that we’re slowly shifting into. The value we most often talk about is more a ‘perception of value’.

If you want to know where to find actual value using NFT’s you should ask yourself: What is currently crucial for my business or work that I don’t actually own? Did you build your business with Shopify? Or on top of Instagram?

For example. I am writing this piece of text for a community I’m a part of. Arising from a discussion about the applicability of NFT’s. Let’s presume it provides value to the people in this community. This means it also provides value to the owner of the community. The more valuable the content and interactions in this group the more valuable the community (Asset) becomes.

Now how does this benefit me directly? It doesn’t. It benefits me only by gaining some more credits from a personal branding perspective. If the owner of the community decides to charge future members $10 a month to join this ‘valuable community’, it is because I and many others contribute to it. Same as with Instagram. If we stop posting pictures, the asset turns out worthless for people, thus we stop looking at it.

NFT’s in this case could be the smart contract the community owner and I agree upon to make sure I get a piece of the pie. Distributed evenly to the people that are actually contributing. Thus transferring ownership to the masses. The NFT attributes this article to me. If the community earns money because of it, so do I.

In short. The big ‘wow’ of NFT’s can be found in the ability to attribute digital assets to their rightful creators. Don’t be blinded by a single hustle like flipping jpegs. There is a revolution going on. The ‘new gold’ is data and that data is being reclaimed by its rightful owners. Using smart contracts on the blockchain. NFT’s.