Driving for hours on end gets you to thinking.
Today I was listening to a podcast, Laura Shin's "Unchained", and the latest episode spoke of NFTs. It was pretty interesting...talking about Old World Czech art and how the Nazis and communists stole it and how they got the family got it back and how now they've spun it up into an NFT museum of sorts called "NFcastle".
One of the points mentioned was the challenge in explaining NFTs.
If you've ever tried to explain cryptocurrency to a newcomer, you understand that it is a challenge. And, even if that someone has heard of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, explaining NFTs is a yet one more level.
In the podcast, there was discussion that NFTs are actually not new. We think of them as the child-of-digital currency, however non-fungibles do not need to be digital cryptos. This is true. The person interviewed emphasized that NFTs are little more than a ledger and she referenced ancient Mesopotamia. A ledger, then or now, records ownership and transactions of an asset, like Bitcoin. Yet with NFTs, the ledger can also show how the asset is different in its own way. This gives it the "N", the non-fungibility.
A very short definition of NFTs came to my mind. I believe this definition is not only brief, but is also accurate.
NFTs = Verified Unique Ownership
Verified
A ledger records an NFT's information (called metadata in blockchain-speak). In its basic form, this info is nothing more than text data. The NFT metadata usually holds info like: minting day/time, owner, transactions, images, media, or such. Of course, anyone can record anything. However, each blockchain has some mechanism to form consensus across its user base, or not. When a consensus is formed, that NFT's metadata is verified. Everyone agrees, "This is legit, the other info is not." The info has been verified.
Unique
If something is fungible it is exactly like every other of its type...just as a one dollar bill is no different than any other one dollar bill. A non-fungible is unique and special and different. Consider two tickets to a rock concert in a huge stadium. One is in the highest, farthest seat in the stadium. The other is front-and-center and includes post-concert back stage privileges. Both are tickets to get you into the concert, however, they are certainly unique and are therefore non-fungible.
Ownership
NFTs also prove who owns the asset. The ledger, and the consensus that backs it, makes the ownership indisputable. For instance, there are thousands, maybe millions, of identical copies of the Mona Lisa painting. However, the accepted consensus is that the one in the Louvre museum is the real one. Despite all the copies, the unique original's ownership (and any transactions) have been recorded and verified.
Summary
NFTs can take on many forms. They might be in the form of a ticket and seat to a show. They might be a playing card in your favorite game. They might be a work of art, or a land deed, or a fractional ownership of a rental property.
Whatever form the NFT comes in, it is verified that each one is completely unique from any other and the ownership, past and present, is indisputable. The use cases are limitless.
NFTs show verified unique ownership.
If you want to learn more about NFTs, I wrote this with more explanation: https://nefties.com/learn
