Lecture 3.0.0. The Global Rise of NFTs
NFTs started in 2012 when Colored Coin was minted as an NFT by Yoni Assia, titled “bitcoin 2.X (also known as Colored Bitcoin) – initial specs.” However, NFTs didn’t really attract much attention in the Crypto Market until recently.
From the second half of 2019, the story changed as NFTs started to gain global attention in the Crypto Market. Check these few examples:
• In July of 2019, the National Basketball Association, a professional basketball league in North America, teamed up with Dapper Labs to create NBA Top Shot, a blockchain-based platform, which generated more than 500 million USD in NFT sales as of late March 2021.
• In fact, the NBA basketball player, LeBron James, has a single highlight NFT that fetched more than 200 000 USD.
• Nyan Cat, a Graphical Interchange Format (GIF), an animated image of a cat, sold for nearly 600 000 USD in February 2021.
• Jack Dorsey posted a simple statement to announce the birth of his company Twitter, a social media platform, on 26 March 2006. That statement, tweet, says, “just setting up my twttr.” With the rise of NFTs, Jack sold this tweet as an NFT for 2.9 million USD on 22 March 2021!
• Taco Bell, the first fast-food-chain company to jump into the NFT trend, sold 25 pieces of crypto-art in under 30 minutes with the highest bid equal to about 3 723 USD in May 2021.
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NFTs are minted by a blockchain. Since they are on a blockchain, it means anyone can view them online for free. So, you may wonder, why are people willing to spend millions of dollars on something they could easily screenshot or download?
The reason is that NFTs grant an exclusive ownership right. The unique data of NFTs makes it easy to verify their ownership and transfer tokens from one owner to another. Moreover, the creator’s signature gives originality to each NFT. These are what drive the frenzied rush for NFT acquisition.
If you are a soccer fan, imagine getting an original artistic picture from the famous Brazilian player, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, popularly known as Pelé, of one of the great goals he scored during his professional career! Through NFT technology, that is possible!
