In the cryptocurrency industry, the popularity of unique NFT-tokens is rapidly growing. Analysts suggest that the trend even has every chance to repeat the success of a decentralized finance niche in 2020. The theme is connected to the stars with world names, musicians, artists and other figures that use the advantages of the blockchain in their favor. Who has already managed to contact NFT and how? We tell more.
What is NFT-tokens
By tradition, we will start with the explanation. NFT is a new type of digital assets. These are unique tokens that are most often tied to digital art objects and digital collections, and the fact of ownership is recorded in a transparent and publicly available blockcha.
In fact, it is the same as the coins of Eth, Dot, Link and other cryptocurrency in the Etheric network, but with one important difference. All NFT-tokens are unique and unreleased. If we can use a decentralized Uniswap exchange to exchange your esters on Polkadot tokens, after which you turn the reverse operation and own the same number of ETH, with NFT-tokens this focus will not work. Each of them is unique and in essence acts as a collectibles. Since it is impossible to create a copy of the NFT-tokeny, they are rare default.
As we have noted, NFT digital form is often tied to some subject from the real world - by type of picture or animation. Binding the NFT to this file guarantees the fact that its "original" owns the one who currently has an appropriate token. The token cannot be faked, re-or in any way to duplicate. For ease, you can perceive NFT-tokens as a rare baseball card or collection cards with Pokemones.
The uniqueness of the tokens affects the demand of investors. For example, this work was estimated at 140 ether, which today is translated into 219 thousand dollars. It would seem that there is nothing remarkable in a small picture of the monkey, but cryptocurrency lovers do not think so. Exactly the same monkey in the world no longer exist, which means its buyer really becomes unique. Well, fakes and accurate copies simply are not considered, because the unique token will not be fixed behind them.
As a result, NFT became popular and among the creators of digital content, because part of the resale value of the token returns directly to its initial author.
The prevalence of the Internet allows each viewing images and pictures to everyone, and also listen to songs - and do it for free. In this case, NFT-tokens are a kind of shield from piracy and fakes, because thanks to the unchanged and transparency of the blockchain, their owners can easily prove their unique ownership to a specific subject. Investors invest big money into similar things including because of this.
Why nft-tokens are so popular
As cnbc representatives clarify, the main impulse for the development of the NFT-tokens and digital art industry has become a coronavirus pandemic. Because of her, the authorities introduced various restrictions that forced people to spend more time at home. As a result, they increased the pastime on the Internet and at the same time saved money, which usually went to meetings with friends in bars and restaurants.
Examples of people's activity on the Internet we have already seen. We are talking about the mass buying of Gamestop shares thanks to the idea of users of Reddit. As a result, the value of the shares took up, and large funds with Wall Street were forced to fix huge losses. Read more about stories in a separate material.
In addition, this year, since the initiation of restrictive measures, the cost of cryptocurrency increased significantly, which attracted many new people to the blockchain industry. With such a point of view, an anonymous collector NFT-tokens under the pseudonym Whale Shark agrees. His collection of digital art is equivalent to 2.7 million dollars. Here is a quote of the investor.
So he agrees with the fact that the new way of life of people and the volume of liberated funds contributed to the popularization of NFT.
The growth in the popularity of NFT-tokens is noticeable on schedules. We checked the current data: the numbers really beat records. For example, here is the data on the NFT trading volume. An indicator over the past week was equivalent to 196 million dollars.
But the number of users of the NFT industry. And this indicator also grows: for the week it amounted to 237 thousand addresses.
Finally, the number of transactions in NFT-niche is also on the rise. They were 1.69 million them for the last week.
In addition, the topic of art market giants are gradually connected. As we learned in February, the debut sale of the digital work of art at the blockchain held Christie's auction house. And this is a great achievement for the industry.
Where buy NFT-tokens
Since the popularity of NFT is growing incredible pace, they appeared separate trading platforms. The most popular among them are Nifty Gateway, Rarible and OpenSea.
Nifty Gateway is a trade platform for NFT-tokenes, which belongs to the GEMINI cryptocurrency. The company of the Legendary Brothers Winsklvoss announced the purchase of the platform on November 19, 2019.
The main page of the Nifty Gateway platform contains NFT announcements, which will be on sale - or "will drop" - after a certain time.
Also on the site you can familiarize yourself with the most popular elements and see changes in their price.
Rarible is another marketplace that takes the popularity of stars. In particular, it is on it that the billionaire Mark Kububan sells its tokens, on the eve of this niche. Recall, thanks to this initiative, he accidentally revealed his Etherium address.
The site displays top sellers and buyers of NFT-tokenes. As you can see, some of them spend a lot of esters on the objects of art during the day.
Slightly below we see auctions and popular collections that are in demand.
On OpenSea more categories on which tokens are divided. For example, here you see digital art and virtual worlds.
And the existing collections and new arrivals are displayed slightly below.
NFT establishes new records
In general, trading platforms for the sale of unique tokens as never before demonstrating increased interest from cryptocurrency lovers. Only in February of this year, the trade volume of transactions with NFT exceeded a level of $ 342 million. At the same time, in December, the volume did not exceed $ 12 million, and the amount of all transactions with NFT over 2020 reached only $ 200 million, reports Decrypt.
The NBA TopShot platform, placing digital collectible items on basketball themes, officially licensed NBA, today is the leader among NFT trading platforms. According to DAPP Radar, NBA Top Shot seized more than 65 percent of the total NFT market in the amount of more than $ 225 million.
The volume of transactions of other collectibles called Cryptopunks in the same period amounted to 79 million dollars, and the HashMasks series rose to $ 33 million. The largest NFT sale transaction was 6.6 million for work entitled "Crossroads" on the Nifty Gateway platform.
Given the sharp growth rates of this sphere, it can be assumed that after a few months, trading volumes of transactions with NFT will reach billions of dollars.
Celebrities also join this trend. Recently, the singer Grimes, which is the mother of Son Ilona Mask, sold a collection of its digital work for 6 million dollars. The collection is focused around the digital avatar "Warnymph", which is the identification of the Grimes itself during the release of its fifth album "Miss Anthropocene".
The singer sold work on the NiftyGateway platform, seven works were unique specimens and more - two with the so-called "open version". The buyer of the latter could get the right to release his own version of the original GRIMES.
Last work called "Death of The Old" was sold for $ 388,938. It is noteworthy that most of the GRIMES collectible items are digital images, but the last three work "Earth", "Mars" and "Death of The Old" are animations to the still not released tracks in the new album of the singer.
Disadvantages of NFT-Tokenes
The key challenge for NFT-art experts consider speculation, that is, the desire to earn at the expense of a banal resale of some facility at a higher price. At the same time, experts note that the number of supporters of unique tokens on long-term also grows.
Here is the quote of the hope of Ivanova, the main operating director of the L'Atelier platform.
Some critics consider the industry not so useful and just Haipova. Some of them even compare the current situation around the NFT with the legendary bubble of Tocken Primary offers (ICO) in 2017. However, fans of the new trend disagree with this. Here is a quote from the already mentioned investor under the pseudonym Whaleshark.
That is, he believes that representatives of the cryptocurrency industry are generally equal to each other. Therefore, it is not worth allocating NFT with a negative side.
Also, since NFT is still mainly working on the Etherumer network, users are forced to pay large commissions for interacting with smart contracts. However, this also does not make a specific NFT-industry worse, because the problem is relevant for everyone.
We believe that the NFT-tokenes market and digital art will develop further. The sphere has great potential, and the developers find ways to apply unique coins in new spheres. Therefore, it is too early to criticize the trend - especially with regard to the fact that many representatives of the blockchain-niche heard only this year.
Look even more interesting in our cryptocat of millionaires. There will also be discussed and other details associated with the blockchain industry.
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