Blockchain technology is coming full circle and entering more and more areas of our lives. It is no longer based solely on the financial aspect, and is often becoming proof of ownership. This is happening thanks to NFT (Non-Fungible Token). What NFT tokens are, how they affect our lives, and what makes them unique – we will tell you about this in this post.
Genesis of NFTs
The origins of NFT tokens date back to 2012, but they came to wide waters five years later. All thanks to a game called CryptoKitties, whose popularity led to an overload of the Ethereum network on which the game was based. The game involved raising virtual cats, each of which was different, special and unique. As the cats were not replicable, they could only be traded or exchanged. Thus, the market value of transactions on some of them exceeded USD 100 thousand. CryptoKitty became a symbol. It was an example of using blockchain for fun. Virtual cats also inspired the further development of the NFT sector.
NFTs today
Today, NFT is moving significantly beyond the virtual world, often becoming proof of ownership of both tangible and intangible objects. The characteristics of tokens are very simple – they are unique and non-exchangeable. There is no other NFT token that reflects the same thing and is of the same value as another. Buyers of this type of token are most often collectors, or hope to resell them in the future at a significant profit.
The most common areas of life in which NFT manifests itself are primarily the arts, entertainment and sports. More and more often we hear about the sale of graphics, paintings or even twitts using NFT tokens. There is also no kind of price standardisation here. A token always costs as much as its potential buyer wants to pay for it.
The craze for NFT tokens has taken root very strongly in the world of sport. One of the reasons why it became so popular was due to a token associated with football star Cristiano Ronaldo. His NFT was valued at USD 290 000. Sports are beginning to absorb this technology, creating tokens for their fans. Examples include football clubs such as AC Milan, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, which are building their own internal ecosystems based on the Socios platform. Fans who will be their participants, for example, will be able to count on the possibility to participate in votes when making important decisions inside the club, as well as on various kinds of promotions, games and competitions.
The future of NFTs
Alongside DeFi, NFT is one of the driving forces behind the current boom. Among the many voices of support, there are also sceptical ones, suggesting only a temporary craze for this kind of tokens. However, this is contradicted by adoption, which manifests itself, for example, through the activities of sports clubs. They show how wide the application of blockchain technology can be.