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By now, we should feel all too familiar with the bizarre, complicated and, at times, downright confusing trends that sweep the internet. For those who continue to take a largely pragmatic approach to utilising the world wide web, and who rarely stray beyond, say, personal networking, gaming, streaming and online shopping, it is easy enough to go merrily along, largely oblivious to the shifting fads that, for many, define this technological era.
Still, it is a truth universally acknowledged that some things will inevitably stick, and that the rest of us – in other words, those of us who did not pioneer their entrance onto the digital scene – will have to learn the ropes sooner or later, or risk being left behind altogether.
If this seems like a thinly veiled reference to cryptocurrencies, then that’s because it is. For many years, around the early 2010s, those of us for whom the terms Bitcoin and Blockchain washed immediately over our heads were able to simply ignore the niche altogether. It was, afterall, a small part of a large scene – one that had little bearing in the world of mainstream internet usage.
Still, an evolution was quietly taking place – and now, in 2021, the result is many early naysayers shifting over to the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
This is, of course, significant progress – but, like a city that never sleeps, the internet is not done with finding new and ever more complex interests that look ready to rise to the fore in the coming years. As of this moment, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, look ready to do just that. Read more below.
From Real World Incident to Digital
We have in our power the ability to translate many items and experiences into virtual entities and situations. We can, for instance, play slots online rather than flying halfway across the world to experience the same excitement; we can curate massive, digital libraries of our favourite movies and music rather than devoting an entire wall’s worth of space to physical copies. We can host professional and personal meet-ups with people living halfway across the world, and curate massive collections of DLC (downloadable content) – possessions that exist only in pixels – with which to personalise the games we play.
All in all, digital experiences and assets comprise a significant part of our worldly (or, as the case may be, non-worldly) goods.
NFTs are, however, a step further. These tokens are, in essence, unique, digital items such as artwork, writing, photographs and video – really, any digital content that is unique to the personal selling or purchasing it. Just recently, they have risen to the very forefront of internet trading forums – namely for their creative use of the Ethereum Blockchain, and the high prices some NFTs are going for.
It is, in a way, the digital equivalent of fine art collection – the only issue is that digital content can be reproduced and dispersed endlessly.
How Are NFTs Expected to Reshape Online Transactions
While internet users trading overpriced gifs and digital artworks may not look like the future of e-commerce, the novel aspects of NFT hint at the sheer scope of possible applications further down the road – once the hype has died down somewhat.
One of the best examples of this lies in Nike’s decision to determine the authenticity of sneakers via NFTs – effectively blurring the line between NFTs, and real world possessions. With this, we can glean that the ramifications of NFTs in practical settings – where more is at stake than a relatively useless file of digital artworks – will no doubt prove to be incredibly broad and diverse, and that the very face of both on- and off-line commerce could well be transformed by NFTs and, by extension, blockchain.
