Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:02, 1 February 2022

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger. Types of NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because each token is uniquely identifiable, NFTs differ from blockchain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

NFT ledgers claim to provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, but the legal rights conveyed by an NFT can be uncertain. NFTs do not restrict the sharing or copying of the underlying digital files, do not necessarily convey the copyright of the digital files, and do not prevent the creation of NFTs with identical associated files.

NFTs have been used as a speculative asset, and they have drawn increasing criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with validating blockchain transactions as well as their frequent use in art scams.

Description

An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular digital or physical asset (such as a file or a physical object) and a license to use the asset for a specified purpose. An NFT (and, if applicable, the associated license to use, copy or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets. The extralegal nature of NFT trading usually results in an informal exchange of ownership over the asset that has no legal basis for enforcement, often conferring little more than use as a status symbol.

NFTs function like cryptographic tokens, but, unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, NFTs are not mutually interchangeable, hence not fungible. While all bitcoins are equal, each NFT may represent a different underlying asset and thus may have a different value. NFTs are created when blockchains string records of cryptographic hash, a set of characters identifying a set of data, onto previous records therefore creating a chain of identifiable data blocks. This cryptographic transaction process ensures the authentication of each digital file by providing a digital signature that is used to track NFT ownership. However, data links that point to details such as where the art is stored can be affected by link rot.

Copyright

Ownership of an NFT does not inherently grant copyright or intellectual property rights to the digital asset a token represents. While someone may sell an NFT representing their work, the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright privileges when ownership of the NFT is changed and so the original owner is allowed to create more NFTs of the same work. In that sense, an NFT is merely a proof of ownership that is separate from a copyright. According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet, "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever the art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred."

History

Early history (2014–2017)

The first known "NFT", Quantum, was created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash in May 2014, consisting of a video clip made by McCoy's wife Jennifer. McCoy registered the video on the Namecoin blockchain and sold it to Dash for $4, during a live presentation for the Seven on Seven conference at the New Museum in New York City. McCoy and Dash referred to the technology as "monetized graphics". A non-fungible, tradable blockchain marker was explicitly linked to a work of art, via on-chain metadata (enabled by Namecoin). This is in contrast to the multi-unit, fungible, metadata-less "colored coins" of other blockchains and Counterparty.

In October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, was launched and demonstrated at DEVCON 1 in London, Ethereum's first developer conference, three months after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain. Most of Etheria's 457 purchasable and tradable hexagonal tiles went unsold for more than five years until March 13, 2021, when renewed interest in NFTs sparked a buying frenzy. Within 24 hours, all tiles of the current version and a prior version, each hardcoded to 1 ETH ($0.43 at the time of launch), were sold for a total of $1.4 million.

The term "NFT" only gained currency with the ERC-721 standard, first proposed in 2017 via the Ethereum GitHub, following the launch of various NFT projects that year. The standard coincided with the launch of several NFT projects, including Curio Cards, CryptoPunks (a project to trade unique cartoon characters, released by the American studio Larva Labs on the Ethereum blockchain) and rare Pepe trading cards.

Increased public awareness (2017–present)

The 2017 online game CryptoKitties was monetized by selling tradable cat NFTs, and its success brought some public attention to NFTs.

The NFT market experienced rapid growth during 2020, with its value tripling to $250 million. In the first three months of 2021, more than $200 million were spent on NFTs.

In the early months of 2021, interest in NFTs increased after a number of high-profile sales and art auctions.

Uses

Commonly associated files

NFTs have been used as a means of exchanging digital tokens that link to a digital file. Ownership of an NFT is often associated with a license to use the underlying digital asset, but generally does not confer copyright to the buyer. Some agreements only grant a license for personal, non-commercial use, while other licenses also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset.

Digital art

Digital art is a common use case for NFTs. High-profile auctions of NFTs linked to digital art have received considerable public attention, with the work "Merge" by artist Pak being the most expensive NFT with a price of $91.8 million and Everydays: the First 5000 Days, by artist Mike Winkelmann (known professionally as Beeple), the second most expensive auction at US$69.3 million in 2021.

Some NFT collections, including EtherRocks and CryptoPunks are examples of generative art, where many different images can be created by assembling a selection of simple picture components in different combinations.

In March 2021, the blockchain company Injective Protocol bought a $95,000 original screen print entitled Morons (White) from English graffiti artist Banksy, and filmed somebody burning it with a cigarette lighter, with the video being minted and sold as an NFT. The person who destroyed the artwork, who called themselves "Burnt Banksy", described the act as a way to transfer a physical work of art to the NFT space.

American curator and art historian Tina Rivers Ryan, who specializes in digital works, has said that art museums are widely not convinced that NFTs represent "lasting cultural relevance." Ryan has compared NFTs to the net art fad before the dot-com bubble.

Games

NFTs can be used to represent in-game assets, such as digital plots of land, which some commentators describe as being controlled "by the user" instead of the game developer by allowing assets to be traded on third-party marketplaces without permission from the game developer.

CryptoKitties was an early successful blockchain online game where players adopt and trade virtual cats. The monetization of NFTs within the game raised a $12.5 million investment, with some kitties selling for over $100,000 each. Following its success, CryptoKitties was added to the ERC-721 standard, which was created in January 2018 (and finalized in June). A similar NFT-based online game, Axie Infinity, was launched in March 2018.

In October 2021, developer Valve banned applications that use blockchain technology or NFTs to exchange value or game artifacts from their Steam platform.

In December 2021, Ubisoft announced Ubisoft Quartz, "an NFT initiative which allows people to buy artificially scarce digital items using cryptocurrency". The announcement has raised significant criticism, with a dislike ratio of 96% over the YouTube announcement video, which has since been unlisted. Some Ubisoft developers have also raised their concern over the announcement. The Game Developers Conference's 2022 annual report stated that 70 percent of developers surveyed said their studios had no interest in integrating NFTs or cryptocurrency into their games.

Some luxury brands have minted NFTs for online video game cosmetics. In November 2021, Morgan Stanley published a note suggesting that this use could become a multi-billion dollar market by 2030.

Music

In February 2021, NFTs reportedly generated around $25 million within the music industry, with artists selling artwork and music as NFT tokens. On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3LAU sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of $11.7 million to commemorate the three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album. On March 3, 2021, an NFT was made to promote the Kings of Leon album When You See Yourself. Other musicians that have used NFTs include American rapper Lil Pump, Grimes, visual artist Shepard Fairey in collaboration with record producer Mike Dean, and rapper Eminem.

Film

In May 2018, 20th Century Fox partnered with Atom Tickets and released limited-edition Deadpool 2 digital posters to promote the film. They were available from OpenSea and the GFT exchange. In March 2021 Adam Benzine's 2015 documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah became the first motion picture and documentary film to be auctioned as an NFT.

Other projects in the film industry using NFTs include the announcement that an exclusive NFT artwork collection will be released for Godzilla vs. Kong and director Kevin Smith announcing in April 2021 that his forthcoming horror movie Killroy Was Here would be released as an NFT. The 2021 film Zero Contact, directed by Rick Dugdale and starring Anthony Hopkins, was also released as an NFT.

In April 2021, an NFT associated with the score of the movie Triumph, composed by Gregg Leonard, was minted as the first NFT for a feature film score.

In November 2021, film director Quentin Tarantino released seven NFTs based on uncut scenes of Pulp Fiction. Miramax subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming that their film rights were violated.

Other associated files

A number of internet memes have been associated with NFTs, which were minted and sold by their creators or by their subjects. Examples include Doge, an image of a Shiba Inu dog, as well as Charlie Bit My Finger, Nyan Cat and Disaster Girl.

Some virtual worlds, often marketed as metaverses, have incorporated NFTs as a means of trading virtual items and virtual real estate.

Some pornographic works have been sold as NFTs, though hostility from NFT marketplaces towards pornographic material has presented significant drawbacks for creators.

In May 2021, UC Berkeley announced that it would be auctioning NFTs for the patent disclosures for two Nobel Prize-winning inventions: CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and cancer immunotherapy. The university will continue to own the patents for these inventions, as the NFTs relate only to the university patent disclosure form, an internal form used by the university for researchers to disclose inventions.

The first credited political protest NFT ("Destruction of Nazi Monument Symbolizing Contemporary Lithuania") was a video filmed by Professor Stanislovas Tomas on April 8, 2019, and minted on March 29, 2021. In the video, Tomas uses a sledgehammer to destroy a state-sponsored Lithuanian plaque located on the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences honoring Nazi war criminal Jonas Noreika.

In 2020, there was a release of the NBA TopShot project which allowed for purchasing NFTs that linked to basketball highlights. The project was built on top of the Flow blockchain.

Speculation

NFTs representing certain digital collectables and artworks have seen considerable use as a speculative asset. The NFT buying surge was called an economic bubble by experts, who also compared it to the Dot-com bubble. In March 2021 Mike Winkelmann called NFTs an "irrational exuberance bubble". By mid-April 2021, demand appeared to have substantially subsided, causing prices to fall significantly.

Money laundering

NFTs, as with other blockchain securities and traditional art sales, can potentially be utilized for money laundering. Auction platforms for NFT sales may potentially face regulatory pressure for compliance with existing anti-money laundering legislation. Gou Wenjun, the director of the Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Centre for the People's Bank of China, has expressed that NFTs could "easily become money-laundering tools." Gou elaborated that there is an increasing unlawful exploitation of various new cryptographic technologies, and that illicit actors often self-identify as innovators of the financial technology sector.

Other uses

In 2019, Nike patented a system called CryptoKicks that would use NFTs to verify the authenticity of physical sneakers and give a virtual version of the shoe to the customer.

Tickets, for any type of event, have been suggested for sale as NFTs. Such proposals would enable event organizers or performers to garner royalties on resales.

Some private online communities have been formed around the confirmed ownership of certain NFT releases.

Standards in blockchains

Specific token standards have been created to support various blockchain use-cases. Ethereum was the first blockchain to support NFTs with its ERC-721 standard and is currently the most widely used. Many other blockchains have added or plan to add support for NFTs with their growing popularity.

Ethereum

ERC-721 was the first standard for representing non-fungible digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC-721 is an inheritable Solidity smart contract standard, meaning that developers can create new ERC-721-compliant contracts by copying from a reference implementation. ERC-721 provides core methods that allow tracking the owner of a unique identifier, as well as a permissioned way for the owner to transfer the asset to others.

The ERC-1155 standard offers "semi-fungibility", as well as providing an analogue to ERC-721 functionality (meaning that an ERC-721 asset could be built using ERC-1155). Unlike ERC-721 where a unique ID represents a single asset, the unique ID of an ERC-1155 token represent a class of assets, and there is an additional quantity field to represent the amount of the class that a particular wallet has. The assets under the same class are interchangeable, and the user can transfer any amount of assets to others.

Because Ethereum currently has high transaction fees (known as gas fees), layer 2 solutions for Ethereum have emerged which also supports NFTs:

• Immutable X – Immutable X is a layer 2 protocol for Ethereum designed specifically for NFTs, utilizing ZK rollups to eliminate gas fees for transactions.
• Polygon – Formerly known as the Matic Network, Polygon is a proof-of-stake blockchain which is supported by major NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea.

Other blockchains

• Bitcoin Cash – Bitcoin Cash supports NFTs and powers the Juungle NFT marketplace.
• Cardano – Cardano introduced native tokens that enable the creation of NFTs without smart contracts with its March 2021 update. Cardano NFT marketplaces include CNFT and Theos.
• Flow – The Flow blockchain, which uses a proof of stake consensus model, supports NFTs. CryptoKitties plans to switch from Ethereum to Flow in the future.
• GoChain – GoChain, a blockchain which bills itself as 'eco-friendly', powers the Zeromint NFT marketplace and the VeVe app.
• Solana – The Solana blockchain also supports non-fungible tokens.
• Tezos – Tezos is a blockchain network that operates on proof of stake and supports the sale of NFT art.

Issues and criticisms

Storage off-chain

NFTs involving digital art generally do not store the associated artwork file on the blockchain due to its size. The token functions in a way more similar to a certificate of ownership, with a web address pointing to the piece of art in question, making the art still subject to link rot. Because NFTs are functionally separate from the underlying artworks, anybody can easily save a copy of an NFT's image, popularly through a right click. NFT supporters disparage this duplication of NFT artwork as a "right-clicker mentality", with one collector quoted by Vice comparing the value of a purchased NFT to that of a status symbol "to show off that they can afford to pay that much".

The "right-clicker mentality" phrase spread virally after its introduction, particularly among those that were critical of the NFT marketplace who used the term to flaunt the ability to capture digital art backed by NFT with ease. This criticism was promoted by Australian programmer Geoffrey Huntley who created "The NFT Bay", modeled after The Pirate Bay. The NFT Bay advertised a torrent file purported to contain 19 terabytes of digital art NFT images. Huntley compared his work to an art project from Pauline Pantsdown, and hoped the site would help educate users on what NFTs are and are not.

Environmental concerns

NFT purchases and sales are enmeshed in a controversy regarding the high energy usage, and consequent greenhouse gas emissions, associated with blockchain transactions. A major aspect of this is the proof-of-work protocol required to regulate and verify blockchain transactions on networks such as Ethereum, which consumes a large amount of electricity; estimating the carbon footprint of a given NFT transaction involves a variety of assumptions about the manner in which that transaction is set up on the blockchain, the economic behavior of blockchain miners (and the energy demands of their mining equipment), as well as the amount of renewable energy being used on these networks. There are also conceptual questions, such as whether the carbon footprint estimate for an NFT purchase should incorporate some portion of the ongoing energy demand of the underlying network, or just the marginal impact of that particular purchase. An analogy that's been described for this is the footprint associated with an additional passenger on a given airline flight.

Some more recent NFT technologies use alternative validation protocols, such as proof of stake, that have much less energy usage for a given validation cycle. Other approaches to reducing electricity include the use of off-chain transactions as part of minting an NFT. A number of NFT art sites are also looking to address these concerns, and some are moving to using technologies and protocols with lower associated footprints. Others now allow the option of buying carbon offsets when making NFT purchases, although the environmental benefits of this have been questioned. In some instances, NFT artists have decided against selling some of their own work to limit carbon emission contributions.

Artist and buyer fees

Sales platforms charge artists and buyers fees for minting, listing, claiming and secondary sales. Analysis of NFT markets in March 2021, in the immediate aftermath of Beeple's "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" selling for US$69.3 million, found that most NFT artworks were selling for less than $200, with a third selling for less than $100. Those selling below $100 were paying network usage fees between 72.5 and 157.5 per cent of that amount, meaning that such artists were on average paying more money in fees than they were making in sales.

Plagiarism and fraud

There have been cases of artists having their work sold by others as an NFT, without permission. After the artist Qing Han died in 2020, her identity was assumed by a fraudster and a number of her works became available for purchase as NFTs. Similarly, a seller posing as Banksy succeeded in selling an NFT supposedly made by the artist for $336,000 in 2021; with the seller in this case refunding the money after the case drew media attention.

The general ease of creating plagiarized NFT works, along with the anonymity of minting NFTs, has made it harder to pursue legal action against NFT plagiarists.

A process known as "sleepminting" can also allow a fraudster to mint an NFT in an artist's wallet and transfer it back to their own account without the artist becoming aware. This allowed a white hat hacker to mint a fraudulent NFT that had seemingly originated from the wallet of the artist Beeple.

Plagiarism concerns have led the art website DeviantArt to create a bot that searches and compares user art to art on popular NFT marketplaces. If the bot finds art that is similar, it warns the user and instructs the user how they can contact NFT marketplaces to request that they take down their plagiarized work.

Some NFT marketplaces have responded to cases of plagiarism by creating "takedown teams" to respond to artist complaints. The NFT marketplace OpenSea has rules against plagiarism and deepfakes (which it labels as non-consensual intimate imagery). Some artists have criticized OpenSea's current efforts to deal to plagiarism saying they are slow to respond to takedown requests and are subject to support scams from users who claim to be representatives from the platform. Other argue that there is currently a lack of market incentive for NFT marketplaces to crack down on plagiarism.

The BBC reported a case of insider trading when an employee of the NFT marketplace OpenSea bought specific NFTs before they were launched, with the prior knowledge they would be promoted on the company's home page. NFT trading is an unregulated market that has no legal recourse for such abuses.

In their announcement of developing NFT support for the graphics editor Photoshop, Adobe proposed creating an InterPlanetary File System database as an alternative means of establishing authenticity for digital works.

The price paid for specific NFTs and sales volume of a particular author may be artificially inflated due to wash trading.

Pyramid/Ponzi scheme claims

The structure of the NFT market has been seen by some as being similar to a pyramid or ponzi scheme, where early adopters profit at the expense of those buying in later. Financial theorist William J. Bernstein has compared the NFT market to 17th century tulip mania, saying how any speculative bubble requires a technological advance for people to "get excited about", with part of that enthusiasm coming from the extreme predictions being made about the product.

In popular culture

A comedy skit on the March 27, 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live featured characters explaining NFTs through rap to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, as played by Kate McKinnon.

The 2021 Paramount+ television film South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid featured an adult version of Butters Stotch in his Professor Chaos persona tricking people into purchasing NFTs in 2061. Although the film portrays them as a poor investment, he has grown so adept at selling them that he is locked in a mental institution.

See also

• List of most expensive non-fungible tokens
• Decentralized autonomous organization
• Web3

References

1. Dean, Sam (March 11, 2021). "$69 million for digital art? The NFT craze, explained". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 8, 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
2. Genç, Ekin (October 5, 2021). "Investors Spent Millions on 'Evolved Apes' NFTs. Then They Got Scammed". Vice Media. Retrieved November 9, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
3. Wilson, Kathleen Bridget; Karg, Adam; Ghaderi, Hadi (October 2021). "Prospecting non-fungible tokens in the digital economy: Stakeholders and ecosystem, risk and opportunity". Business Horizons: S0007681321002019. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2021.10.007. S2CID 240241342.
4. Dean, Sam (March 11, 2021). "$69 million for digital art? The NFT craze, explained". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
5. ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (March 11, 2021). "Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million". The Verge. Archived from the original on March 21, 2021. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
6. Mendis, Dinusha (August 24, 2021). "When you buy an NFT, you don't completely own it – here's why". The Conversation. Retrieved November 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
7. ^ Gault, Matthew (November 3, 2021). "What the Hell Is 'Right-Clicker Mentality'?". Vice. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
8. "WTF Is an NFT, Anyway? And Should I Care?". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
9. ^ Boscovic, Dragan. "How nonfungible tokens work and where they get their value – a cryptocurrency expert explains NFTs". The Conversation. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
10. Kastrenakes, Jacob (March 25, 2021). "Your Million-Dollar NFT Can Break Tomorrow If You're Not Careful". The Verge. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
11. Gallagher, Jacob (March 15, 2021). "NFTs Are the Biggest Internet Craze. Do They Work for Sneakers?". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
12. ^ Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (March 11, 2021). "What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
13. Salmon, Felix (March 12, 2021). "How to exhibit your very own $69 million Beeple". Axios. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
14. Clark, Mitchell (March 11, 2021). "NFTs, explained". The Verge. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
15. "NFT blockchain drives surge in digital art auctions". BBC. March 3, 2021. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
16. "Memes for Sale? Making sense of NFTs". Harvard Law Today. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
17. Cascone, Sarah (May 7, 2021). "Sotheby's Is Selling the First NFT Ever Minted – and Bidding Starts at $100". Artnet News. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
18. ^ Dash, Anil (April 2, 2021). "NFTs Weren't Supposed to End Like This". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
19. Ostroff, Caitlin (May 8, 2021). "The NFT Origin Story, Starring Digital Cats". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
20. "The Cult of CryptoPunks". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
21. ^ Entriken, William; Shirley, Dieter; Evans, Jacob; Natassia, Sachs (January 24, 2018). "EIP-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved October 28, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
22. Urbach, Nils (December 13, 2019). "NFTs in Practice – Non-Fungible Tokens as Core Component of a Blockchain-based Event Ticketing Application" (PDF). Fraunhofer Research Center, Finance and Information Management. Retrieved October 28, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
23. "Should You Buy a Bitcoin-Inspired Image of Lindsay Lohan?". Bloomberg.com. March 8, 2021. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
24. Abbruzzese, Jason (June 16, 2017). "This ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art". Mashable. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
25. ^ "CryptoKitties Mania Overwhelms Ethereum Network's Processing". Bloomberg.com. December 4, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
26. "The NFT Market Tripled Last Year, and It's Gaining Even More Momentum in 2021". Morning Brew. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
27. "NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World – But They Could Change So Much More". Time. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
28. Howcroft, Elizabeth (March 17, 2021). "Explainer: NFTs are hot. So what are they?". Reuters. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
29. "NFTS' Nifty Copyright Issues – Intellectual Property – Canada".
30. Patterson, Dan (March 4, 2021). "Blockchain company buys and burns Banksy artwork to turn it into a digital original". CBS News. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
31. "Pak Breaks Record for Most Expensive NFT Sale". HYPEBEAST. December 7, 2021. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
32. Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (March 11, 2021). "What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
33. Sugiura, Eri (October 13, 2021). "NFTs turn Japan's manga and anime into genuine art". Financial Times. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
34. "Banksy art burned, destroyed and sold as token in 'money-making stunt'". BBC News. March 9, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
35. "Burnt Banksy's Inflammatory N.F.T. Not-Art". The New Yorker. May 8, 2021. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
36. "Burnt Banksy's Inflammatory N.F.T. Not-Art". The New Yorker. May 8, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
37. Lu, Fei (January 6, 2022). "Does NFT Art Have A Place In The Museum In 2022?". Jing Culture and Commerce. Retrieved January 6, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
38. "Why many art collectors are staying away from the NFT gold rush". The Independent. April 30, 2021. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
39. Valeonti, Foteini; Bikakis, Antonis; Terras, Melissa; Speed, Chris; Hudson-Smith, Andrew; Chalkias, Konstantinos (January 2021). "Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)". Applied Sciences. 11 (21): 9931. doi:10.3390/app11219931.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
40. Quiroz-Gutierrez, Marco (March 22, 2021). "NFTs Are Spurring a Digital Land Grab – in Videogame Worlds". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
41. Alexander, Cristina (October 15, 2021). "Is Heroes & Empires free to play?". Gamepur. Gamurs. Archived from the original on November 11, 2021.
42. "CryptoKitties raises $12M from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
43. Cheng, Evelyn (December 6, 2017). "Meet CryptoKitties, the $100,000 digital beanie babies epitomizing the cryptocurrency mania". CNBC. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
44. Entriken, William (June 22, 2018). "Move EIP 721 to Final (#1170) ethereum/EIPs@b015a86". GitHub. Retrieved November 7, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
45. Jiang, Sisi (October 15, 2021). "Good Riddance: Steam Bans Games That Feature Crypto And NFTs". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 15, 2021.
46. "Ubisoft's NFT Announcement Has Been Intensely Disliked". Kotaku. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
47. GameCentral (December 8, 2021). "Ubisoft unlist Quartz NFT announcement video as it gets 16K dislikes". Metro. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
48. "Ubisoft Developers Confused, Upset Over NFT Plans". Game Rant. December 15, 2021. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
49. "Ubisoft Quartz: Some developers of the company didn't like entering the world of NFTs". Pledge Times. December 15, 2021. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
50. Nightingale, Ed (December 16, 2021). "French trade union criticises Ubisoft Quartz as "a useless, costly, ecologically mortifying tech"". Eurogamer. Retrieved December 23, 2021.
51. Jeffrey, Cal. "Game Developers Conference report: most developers frown on blockchain games". TechSpot. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
52. Peters, Jay (January 20, 2022). "Many game developers hate NFTs, too". The Verge. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
53. Thomas, Dana (October 4, 2021). "Dolce & Gabbana Just Set a $6 Million Record for Fashion NFTs". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
54. Lee, Isabelle (November 17, 2021). "Luxury NFTs could become a $56 billion market by 2030 and could see 'dramatically' increased demand thanks to the metaverse, Morgan Stanley says". Insider. Retrieved January 20, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
55. "Music-related NFT sales have topped $25m in the past month". Music Business Worldwide. March 12, 2021. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
56. Brown, Abram. "Largest NFT Sale Ever Came From A Business School Dropout Turned Star DJ". Forbes. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
57. "Las Vegas DJ-producer makes millions selling NFTs". Las Vegas Review-Journal. May 1, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
58. Hissong, Samantha (March 3, 2021). "Kings of Leon Will Be the First Band to Release an Album as an NFT". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
59. Steele, Anne (March 23, 2021). "Musicians Turn to NFTs to Make Up for Lost Revenue". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
60. Hissong, Samantha (March 9, 2021). "Music NFTs Have Gone Mainstream. Who's In?". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
61. "CEO of Sweet Talks NFT Partnership with Rapper Lil Pump". Cheddar. March 23, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
62. "Musician NFT Projects, Ranked by How Many F's I Can Give". Vulture. March 18, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
63. "Rappers and NFTs – How Hip-Hop Is Cashing In on Non-Fungible Tokens". XXL Mag. March 23, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
64. Kastrenakes, Jacob (March 1, 2021). "Grimes sold $6 million worth of digital art as NFTs". The Verge. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
65. Halperin, Shirley (April 21, 2021). "Mike Dean and Shepard Fairey Team for NFT Offering 'OBEY 4:22'". Variety. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
66. "Eminem's First NFT Drop, 'Shady Con,' Includes One-of-a-Kind Slim Shady-Produced Beats". Billboard. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
67. "Deadpool posters can now be bought as NFTs". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
68. Chmielewski, Dawn C. (August 3, 2018). "'Deadpool 2' Jumps On The Digital Collectibles Bandwagon". Deadline. Retrieved May 19, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
69. Ravindran, Manori (March 15, 2021). "NFT Craze Enters Film World: 'Claude Lanzmann' Documentary is First Oscar Nominee to Be Released as Digital Token". Variety. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
70. Bosselman, Haley (March 31, 2021). "'Godzilla vs. Kong' to Have First Major Motion Picture NFT Art Release". Variety. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
71. D'Alessandro, Anthony (April 13, 2021). "Kevin Smith To Sell Horror Movie 'Killroy Was Here' As NFT, Launches Jay And Silent Bob's Crypto Studio". Deadline. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
72. Goldsmith, Jill (September 8, 2021). "Enderby Entertainment's Pandemic Film 'Zero Contact' To Premiere On New NFT Platform Vuele; Watch The Trailer – Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
73. Verhoeven, Beatrice (July 7, 2021). "Anthony Hopkins Film 'Zero Contact' to Premiere as NFT on New Platform Vuele". TheWrap. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
74. "World's First Movie Score & Soundtrack For Sale As An NFT". ScreenRant. April 30, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
75. Diaz, Johnny (November 17, 2021). "Miramax Sues Quentin Tarantino Over Planned 'Pulp Fiction' NFTs". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2021.
76. "NFTs and me: meet the people trying to sell their memes for millions". The Guardian. June 23, 2021. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
77. "Iconic 'Doge' meme NFT breaks record, selling for $4 million". NBC News. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
78. "Charlie Bit Me NFT sale: Brothers to pay for university with auction money". BBC News. June 3, 2021. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
79. Griffith, Erin (February 22, 2021). "Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
80. Griffith, Erin (February 22, 2021). "Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
81. "Zoë Roth sells 'Disaster Girl' meme as NFT for $500,000". BBC News. April 30, 2021. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
82. "Virtual real estate plot sells for close to $1 mln". Reuters. June 18, 2021.
83. Dickson, EJ (March 16, 2021). "Porn Creators Are Getting In on the NFT Craze". Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
84. Cole, Samantha (March 19, 2021). "'Building the Cockchain:' How NSFW Artists Are Shaping the Future of NFTs". Vice. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
85. ^ "UC Berkeley Will Auction NFTs for 2 Nobel Prize Patents | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
86. "Activist turns anti-Nazi act into commodified digital art". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
87. "Stanislovas Tomas im Interview: "NFTs können unsere Gesellschaft verändern"". BeInCrypto (in German). April 18, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
88. "CryptoKitties developer launches NBA TopShot, a new blockchain-based collectible collab with the NBA". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
89. ^ "NFTs are both priceless and worthless". Engadget. March 11, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
90. Howcroft, Elizabeth (August 25, 2021). "NFT sales surge as speculators pile in, sceptics see bubble". Reuters. Retrieved January 17, 2022.
91. Reyburn, Scott (March 30, 2021). "Art's NFT Question: Next Frontier in Trading, or a New Form of Tulip?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
92. Small, Zachary (April 28, 2021). "As Auctioneers and Artists Rush Into NFTs, Many Collectors Stay Away". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
93. "NFT MILLIONAIRE BEEPLE SAYS CRYPTO ART IS BUBBLE AND WILL 'ABSOLUTELY GO TO ZERO'". The Independent. March 24, 2021. Retrieved January 5, 2022.(subscription required)
94. Tarmy, James; Kharif, Olga (April 15, 2021). "These Crypto Bros Want to Be the Guggenheims of NFT Art". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
95. Owen, Allison; Chase, Isabella (December 2, 2021). "NFTs: A New Frontier for Money Laundering?". Royal United Services Institute. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
96. Coco, Feng (December 2, 2021). "China's market for NFTs, metaverse may drive money laundering". South China Morning Post. Retrieved January 16, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
97. Gallagher, Jacob (March 15, 2021). "NFTs Are the Biggest Internet Craze. Do They Work for Sneakers?". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
98. "NFTs in Practice – Non-Fungible Tokens as Core Component of a Blockchain-based Event Ticketing Application". Researchgate. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
99. "Golden Ticket: How NFTs Can Help Artists Profit From Ticket Resales". MiamiLaw. April 12, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
100. "NFTs: The future of ticketing?". IQ Mag. May 6, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
101. "How NFTs Are Set to Disrupt the Music Industry". Entrepreneur. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
102. "I Joined a Penguin NFT Club Because Apparently That's What We Do Now". The New York Times. August 12, 2021. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021.
103. "Why Bored Ape Avatars Are Taking Over Twitter". The New Yorker. July 30, 2021.
104. Volpicelli, Gian (February 24, 2021). "The bitcoin elite are spending millions on collectable memes". Wired UK.
105. "EIP-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard".
106. "EIP-721: ERC-721 Non-Fungible Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
107. ^ "EIP-1155: ERC-1155 Multi Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
108. "Uniswap UNI Token was "Shining Star" of DeFi this Past Week, while Ethereum based NFTs Rising in Popularity, OKEx Reports". Crowdfund Insider. March 7, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
109. Byrne, Katie (July 3, 2021). "Meet the Irish NFT collectors on the hunt for digital gems that could change their lives". Independent.ie. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
110. Sun, Zhiyuan (October 7, 2021). "Is There Any Hope Left for Cardano?". The Motley Fool. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
111. Roberto, Melissa (May 12, 2021). "Sophie Brussaux partners with GoChain to auction 'impactful,' eco-friendly art through NFT collaboration". Fox Business. Fox Business. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
112. Ponciano, Jonathan. "Solana Skyrockets To New High – Amassing Nearly $40 Billion In Market Value As Competition With Ethereum Heats Up". Forbes. Retrieved September 1, 2021.
113. Sparkes, Matthew (March 30, 2021). "NFT developers say cryptocurrencies must tackle their carbon emissions". NewScientist. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
114. Gault, Matthew (November 18, 2021). "Someone Made a Pirate Bay for NFTs". Vice. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
115. ^ Calma, Justine (March 15, 2021). "The climate controversy swirling around NFTs". The Verge. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
116. Krause, Max; Tolaymat, Thabet (2018). "Quantification of energy and carbon costs for mining cryptocurrencies". Nature Sustainability. 1: 814. doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0188-8.
117. Gallersdorfer, Ulrich; Klassen, Lena; Stoll, Christian (2020). "Energy Consumption of Cryptocurrencies Beyond Bitcoin". Joule. 4 (9): 1843–1846. doi:10.1016/j.joule.2020.07.013. PMC 7402366. PMID 32838201.
118. deVries, Alex (May 16, 2018). "Bitcoin's Growing Energy Problem". Joule.
119. Cuen, Leigh (March 21, 2021). "The debate about cryptocurrency and energy consumption". TechCrunch.
120. De-Mattei, Shanti Escalante (April 14, 2021). "Should You Worry About the Environmental Impact of Your NFTs?". Art News. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
121. Matney, Lucas (March 30, 2021). "ConsenSys launches a more energy-efficient NFT ecosystem with a project from artist Damien Hirst as its first drop". Techcrunch. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
122. Di Liscia, Valentina (April 5, 2021). "Does Carbon Offsetting Really Address the NFT Ecological Dilemma?". Hypoallergic. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
123. Howson, Peter. "NFTs: why digital art has such a massive carbon footprint". The Conversation. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
124. ^ Kinsella, Eileen (April 29, 2021). "Think Everyone Is Getting Rich Off NFTs? Most Sales Are Actually $200 or Less, According to One Report". Artnet News. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
125. Williams, Rhiannon (April 2, 2021). "NFT digital art: Would you pay millions of pounds for art you can't touch?". inews Technology. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
126. Kwan, Jacklin (July 28, 2021). "An artist died. Then thieves made NFTs of her work". Wired. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
127. "Fake Banksy NFT sold through artist's website for £244k". BBC News. August 31, 2021.
128. ^ Beckett, Lois date=2022-01-29. "'Huge mess of theft and fraud:' artists sound alarm as NFT crime proliferates". The Guardian. Retrieved January 31, 2022. {{cite news}}: Missing pipe in: |first= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
129. ^ Schneider, Tim (April 21, 2021). "The Gray Market: How a Brazen Hack of That $69 Million Beeple Revealed the True Vulnerability of the NFT Market (and Other Insights)". artnet news. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
130. ^ "Web3's early promise for artists tainted by rampant stolen works and likenesses". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
131. "OpenSea admits insider trading of NFTs it promoted". BBC News. September 16, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
132. Clark, Mitchell (October 26, 2021). "Photoshop's new NFT button could prove you're the real digital artist". The Verge. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
133. "The Play Book". Winston & Strawn. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
134. Hayward, Decrypt / Andrew (January 12, 2022). "Hot Ethereum NFT Platform LooksRare Is Rife With Wash Trading—And OK With It". Decrypt. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
135. "New Study: NFT Prices Are Manipulated by Few with Wash Trades (Artificial Demand)". Moguldom. December 6, 2021. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
136. Kelly, Jemima (January 5, 2022). "Matt Damon's crypto ad is more than just cringeworthy". Financial Times. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
137. "The Origin of Value: The Greater Fools Theory : The Indicator from Planet Money". NPR.org. Retrieved January 26, 2022.
138. Goodwin, Jazmin. "Still not sure what NFTs are? 'SNL' explains with Eminem parody". CNN. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
139. "Watch 'South Park' Hilariously Explain NFT Craze in 'Post COVID 2' Viral Video - Maxim". www.maxim.com. December 22, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2022.

External links

• ERC-721 Standard

• Non-fungible token
• Blockchain and auctions
• Digital art
• Blockchain art