It's no secret that the way we create and consume art has changed drastically in the last decade or so, thanks to the internet. Blockchain technology has become a reliable tool for generating digital goods and assets, and so it seems that the art world may experience another major shift in how art is created and shared. What you need to know about this technology and how it will change the art world.¹ ² ³
Non-fungible means unique and similar to how objects are unique and distinguishable in physical space. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tokens on a blockchain or distributed ledger that are uniquely and digitally represent ownership of a specific object. Such assets may include anything from collectible art to CryptoKitties and rare baseball cards to real estate.
New crypto assets are able to make it possible to produce uniquely tailored digital artwork. The earliest adoption cases for non-fungible tokens have been in video games, with companies like Decentraland, this, and Rare Bits already taking the lead. Yet we're starting to see more and more use cases for NFTs in art. Blockchain technology will transform one section of society and all the implications.
Crypto kitties, which made headlines in December 2017 when they clogged up Ethereum's network and made the fees more expensive. The game was simple—users could purchase a virtual kitten with ETH, breed them to create a new kitten with specific traits, and then sell them on an auction house. With each new kitty that comes in, there are unique traits that can be passed down from their parents, this and this.
In its current form, a non-fungible token will only function within a single app, which makes it difficult for it to have the level of adoption that's required. By defining standards that would allow assets to be utilized across a multitude of different blockchain networks, developers and designers could this create assets that can be brought from one platform to another.
NFTs are helping to redefine how digital art can be made and experienced by artists, collectors, and fans. The Ethereum blockchain is proving itself to be an excellent medium for using NFTs to create digital art.