NFT’s; let’s take a closer look at what they’re really all about!

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.

Photo by Juan Di Nella on Unsplash

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.

4 thoughts on “NFT’s; let’s take a closer look at what they’re really all about!”

  1. Follow up question:

    How are NFTs used to attribute the article (content) to the creator?

    Thank you.

    • I can’t give you a very technical answer but looking at how dao’s work it would be in the form of a diverse payment. Meaning that every contributor or first mover to a web3 platform would get points. As in real life, they would use the points to consume. In this case, consume content. If you produce a lot of content that gets consumed you receive credits thus your ownership grows and you receive more money. If you only spend but don’t contribute you’ll end up with a shrinking piece of the pie. So it would be something like this, I create 10 articles so 10 smart contracts are being made. The website has a total of 100 articles. People pay for the website/community and the NFT collects data on the consumption of my work in regards to the total consumption. Based on those numbers I’ll get more or less of the total revenue. Interesting question by the way. I will look deeper in this topic and see if I can find more to explain it.

    • Mainly, however, it’s all about giving ownership to the digital asset. So how can one know that a text is mine? The NFT would tell. This article for example is published on a web2 platform, WordPress. I can only monetize on it by using web2 solutions like implementing Google Adsense or trying to upsell you something else.

      I could also build my own paywall on top of this website.
      But that’s often not the case with other web2 platforms. Like Instagram for example. Where until the time of this writing, 100% of ad revenue is being collected by Meta, not by the creator.

      They are working on new solutions for creators where you get somewhere in the reach of 55% I believe. But still, the creators are giving meaning to Instagram, not the founders.

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