A Different Dimension of Art: NFT
Nowadays, we encounter many new concepts in social media and our environment. When it comes to cryptocurrencies and Metaverse plots, one of the most popular among them is undoubtedly “NFT.” Everyone somehow started questioning, talking, and researching what it was. People have earned significant amounts or made large investments in many parts of the world thanks to NFT. So, what is this NFT?
It means “Non-Fungible Token,” an unchangeable coin if we need to explain it with its expansion. The connection between its name and its purpose makes a lot of sense. NFT is a tracking system that allows us to track who owns the digital asset or product. Today, many illustrations, collages, collections, and more products that we can access over the internet can be placed on our desktop with a right click without knowing who the owner is. Thanks to this system, it is possible to track who the owners of these works of art are. Therefore, first of all, it would be correct to say that there is a great respect for labor.
After the artists put their works up for sale on the internet, the purchase and sale transactions are made with cryptocurrencies. The person who buys the work also gets a digital certificate that they own this work. Of course, there are many reasons why people buy NFT, but the most important of them is investment. An NFT can be sold multiple times. That’s why people rush to make easy money, such as buying affordable works and selling them in large quantities, but the situation is a little different. Because NFT offers a trackable system, every time the work is sold, there is a condition that a royalty fee of 10 percent is paid to the original owner of the work, i.e., the creator.
In addition, in our age, where showing off is very important, people take great pleasure in exhibiting NFT artifacts they buy. Posts are made on social media; purchased works are evendisplayed as profile photos.
So, how logical is it to do all this for a digital file?
In addition to the people who are actively involved in this sector, there are, of course, many people who question the meaning of all this effort. NFT is nothing more than a jpeg, gif, original file extension. Why would you invest a fortune in a file you download to your computer at a time when everyone can access anything they want on the Internet with crazy ease?
When this thought circulates in our minds, there is a fact that we must remember: the digital age! Don’t we do everything digitally these days anyway?
We read our books with e-readers, and our coins have become virtual assets called cryptocurrencies. In three years, we fit being a student into Zoom meetings. We even started creating a virtual universe when we realized we could do things from afar. When we recognize these, we no longer find it strange that art and everything else have become digital entities. It should not be surprising that it overflows from canvases and oil paints and gets its share of practicality.
No matter how pointless and complicated a virtual coin was when the concept of crypto money first entered our lives, almost everyone has applications on their phones that follow this stock market today. NFT will catch the same rhythm with time and occupy the same place in our lives. Before selling digital works, as NFT came into our lives, none of the virtual works saw any value. However, the transaction volume of 12.1 million Euros in only the first half of 2020 reached 9.4 billion in the third quarter of 2021. The NFT frenzy grew like an avalanche and gained excellent momentum without us noticing.
The concept of this “unchangeable token” now only needs to pass through people’s prejudices andgain a place in society in its complete sense. After all, organizations understand thatwhat is purchased is not a “jpeg file” but a “work of art,” it will undoubtedly begin to be considered as valuable as a painting.
If Gogh had lived in the 21st century, Starry Nights would have taken its place in our memories not as a painting but as an NFT work.
