By Suyash Handa | 18th May, 2022
Students are creators and NFTs are a changing landscape. Many don’t even realize what students with NFTs are capable of. The millions of dollars for each NFT are merely a puzzle-piece in the bigger picture. Read on to find out what the hype and the secret is all about!
The last time the world witnessed a virtual take-over was when Minecraft came out in 2011. But, the super massive surge of NFTs in approximately the last one year has proven to be a bigger deal than the sandbox video-game itself. You may have probably abandoned thinking about NFTs after scratching your head while reading last year’s biggest headline – “JPG File Sells for $69 Million, as 'NFT Mania' Gathers Pace”. Well, let’s decipher this technological mystery.
What In The World Is An "NFT"?!
An NFT stands for a non-fungible token. Non-fungible means unique or irreplaceable. For example, one American dollar is fungible, it has an exact value whereas, a painting like the Mona Lisa is non-fungible. The painting can be traded for another painting or maybe an undefined amount of cash. The worth of the painting ultimately depends on painter themselves.
💡Fun Fact: Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is valued at approximately $908 million and some rumors state that Da Vinci took 13 years to paint only its smile!
In today’s world, an NFT can be anything digital – a image, an audio recording, a video of you singing, a screenshot of a tweet or even a whole website (yeah, you read that right!). But, most of the hype has been going around digital artwork. No two NFTs are the same!
To reduce it to bare bones, NFTs are generally bought using cryptocurrency (which we’ll dedicate whole article to) and most of their info is stored on an archive known as the Ethereum Blockchain which essentially is a database of what’s being bought and sold. Thus, both the buyer and the seller can prove that a token was traded among themselves using this archive and, essentially get “bragging-rights” (can become massive show-offs).
Current estimates suggest that the NTF marketplace is worth more than $42 billion and surprisingly, it was worth $82.5 million in 2020. Thus, the total value of NFT transactions worldwide jumped nearly 50,000% - Wow! So, having closely monitored the NTF market place since its onset in 2020, there seems to be a lot of potential in the whole concept. $42 Billion is no joke!
Strange Things In The NFT Marketplace
In January this year, an image of a computer-generated pixelated person was sold for about $50.6 million worth of cryptocurrency on a relatively new online marketplace.
If that wasn't weird already, a few minutes later, the same NFT (titled Meebits) was sold by the buyer back to the original seller for around $49.6 million. At first, an average human being would be confused upon reviewing such an incomprehensible display of human intelligence. After hours of correctly using the wisdom of the internet, I still don’t get it.
Above: Meebits NFTs
Another such peculiar incident took place in January as well. Reportedly, an Indonesian student became a millionaire by selling selfies of himself as NFTs. Consisting of around 1,000 selfies taken over the course of five years, the collection was titled ‘Ghozali Everyday’ and, when his sales were at its peak, some of his selfies sold for $3,000 each. Talk about a priceless face!
Students + NFTs: Is There A Connection?
NFTs may just be the new form of art collecting. Some “collectors” might buy tokens for prestige associated with the token or, some might buy it just for pleasure. But, one thing is certain – the world wants to invest their cryptocurrency by buying valuable assets. In other words, people want to buy expensive stuff with their digital currency, specifically NFTs. So, this brings us to the question – What is in it for students?
Students are creators. We all actually spend most of our time creating mostly original content. Whether it’s a doodle that we make in History class, a video that we made for a school project or the articles I write for Dreamers Abyss, it is all content creation. Some of us might be aware creators meaning, our content gets noticed by the public but for the most part, it remains clandestine.
So, it is a brilliant option for students to turn their work into NFTs, not necessarily with the intent of earning money but, to get their work out to the world.
You never know what you’re capable of until you try.
Finishing it all off on a poetic note:
"Hide not your talents, they for use were made, What's a sundial in the shade?" – Benjamin Franklin
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