NFTs: The Good, The Bad, The Uncertain Future Clara Che Wei Peh
Singapore artist Farizwan Fajari, better known as Speak Cryptic, minted his first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) artwork on 14 March 2021. The visual artist, working across drawings, installations, public art and performance-based mediums, was first introduced to the digital asset earlier this year, prompted by the media frenzy surrounding Christie’s auction of Beeple’s ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’. Beeple’s collection was the first instance of an art auction house offering a fully digital artwork and as an NFT. The work went on to achieve a jawdropping price of USD69.3 million, prompting many to ask: what is an NFT, and what does it mean for the future of art? An NFT is a unique digital asset stored on the blockchain, and can refer to digital files, including artworks and collectibles. Blockchain is a digital ledger of data that is distributed across a decentralised network of computer systems. The technology facilitates a record of transactions that is immutable, transparent and entirely traceable. One of its key applications is cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin is a fungible asset, as different units of Bitcoin are mutually interchangeable. An NFT, in contrast, is by definition unique. It cannot be equally swapped or exchanged for another. Each NFT is minted onto the blockchain, encoding within it a smart contract, or a string of code and metadata, that certifies its authorship and ownership. NFTs generate and maintain digital scarcity, a feat that was previously less accessible within a digital economy of infinite reproducibility and shareability.
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