New Delhi: Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have of late gained much popularity, with NFT artworks selling for millions of dollars. While these tokens could come in many forms ranging from paintings to personal collections to video games and even social media posts, recent reports said an Armenian artist is auctioning off even her ovarian egg through an NFT.
According to the reports, multimedia artist Narine Arakelian’s painting called Love, Hope, Live will be auctioned off as an NFT, with a contract that promises the buyer an ovarian egg from the 42-year-old artist.
In India, celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Salman Khan, Sunny Leone, Manish Malhotra, and others have recently launched their own NFTs, and the response shows the market for digital assets is opening up in the country.
You may ask why would anyone like to spend so much money on items that are only present digitally, and can be freely accessed?
But NFT experts believe it’s the next phase in art collection.
So, here is a look at what NFTs are, why they are gaining popularity, and what are the risks involved.
What Are NFTs?
NFTs are a class of digital asset — digital collectibles, in simple terms. A non-fungible token can be anything, ranging from drawings and animated GIFs to songs, items in video games or even tweets.
Non-fungible means something that is unique and cannot be exchanged for anything else. The opposite, fungible, has examples like bitcoin. One bitcoin can be swapped for another as they are identical. But, no two NFTs are the same.
The unique identity and ownership of an NFT is verifiable through the blockchain ledger. Ownership of the NFT is often linked with a licence to use underlying digital assets. However, it does not confer any copyright to the buyer. Some agreements only grant a licence for personal and non-commercial use, while other licences also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset.
NFTs can be bought with cryptocurrencies…
