In the first three months of 2021, the market value will increase by 1785%——
How long is the spring of NFT
Our reporter Qu Lihua
The transaction of NFT collectibles has been extremely hot recently.
American artist Mike Winkelman (nicknamed "Beeple")'s digital artwork "Everyday-The First 5000 Days" sold for nearly $70 million.
Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX announced that it has established an NFT trading market for Indian artists and creators.
The reporter noticed that a large NFT gallery with academic support from the Central Academy of Fine Arts also opened in China in May.
NFT is the abbreviation of Non-Fungible Token, which is called "non-homogeneous token" in Chinese. It is a non-homogeneous digital asset based on the background of blockchain, which is similar to but different from Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It is indivisible, irreplaceable and unique.
NFT is based on blockchain technology and can prove its originality and ownership. Each has a unique identity, uniqueness, and is extremely difficult to steal.
The NFT, which takes digital artwork as a concrete form of expression, is therefore favored by the market.
Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Institute of Digital Economy of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes that “NFT is essentially a smart contract used to mark digital assets, and it relies on a technology-based, distributed, and spontaneously formed point-to-point created by the blockchain. Transaction trust system. People hope to realize value transfer through blockchain technology trust."
Right now, the development of NFT can be described as triumphantly: from digital houses, music paintings to collections, it seems that everything can be NFT.
Data show that in the first three months of 2021, the value of the NFT market has increased by 1785%, with sales exceeding US$2 billion in the first quarter, a 20-fold increase from the previous quarter.
Growth slowed in April, but it was still significantly higher than before 2021.
The information in the newspaper shows that institutions and individuals are still entering the market.
“The openness and transparency of circulation time, circulation traces, transaction prices, and even the works themselves, etc., will help achieve more efficient borderless circulation, opening a precedent for digital art.” Li Zhen, founder and CEO of investment company CRYPTOYC, believes that NFT The prospects and vitality are unquestionable, but the current NFT market has low thresholds, strong speculation, and a wide audience, and it is still at a very early stage.
The reporter learned that the NFT issuance method is more and more closely integrated with the trendy play, and there are similarities in cultural popularity.
For example, NFT artwork and FM Gallery, a popular publishing platform, have various ways of publishing.
One is the blind box form. The user opens the blind box and may randomly harvest a piece of NFT work by a well-known artist; the other is the main mode of art fragments: using blockchain technology to divide a piece of art into several fragments , Each fragment is bound to a unique NFT and contains a unique background story. Users can gather the fragments to form a complete artwork NFT and exchange for physical artwork.
Peng Feiming, founder and CEO of FM Gallery, believes that the traditional art model has many pain points that cannot be solved for artists, galleries, auction houses, etc., and NFT is a bridge connecting the real society and the world on the chain.
The current blind box, limited-time sale and other methods are more and more closely integrated with trendy play and artwork.
FM Gallery hopes to interpret art distribution in an innovative way through blind boxes and art fragments, and promote the development of the industry.
Pan Helin believes that from an economic point of view, NFT is a kind of property rights creation and clarifies the ownership relationship.
Especially in the era of the explosion of virtual goods on the Internet, the ownership of virtual goods cannot be defined, and NFT provides a way to benefit the development of the Internet from the perspective of property rights.
The creation of property rights is good for the economy itself.
When property rights are clarified, human creation and innovation become more active, and when property rights can be traded in a certain way and can be guaranteed not to be copied or tampered with, then the transaction efficiency of human society will also be improved.
However, Pan Helin pointed out that there are also some motives behind NFTs that are not based on technical motives, but are similar to virtual currency hype.
"For example, the use of NFT to conduct a behavior called token issuance, which is actually financing. However, the NFT technology itself should still be supported."
The property rights of virtual goods will not be settled once and for all because of the NFT form, and there will still be problems.
Cao Jianfeng, a senior researcher at Tencent Research Institute, pointed out that NFT solves the problems of asset creators, asset owners, and number of assets. It connects the real and virtual worlds and brings a more realistic experience like offline physical assets.
However, NFT also has some problems that cannot be ignored. First, the digital objects pointed to by NFT may be pirated and counterfeited.
In this regard, some platforms have adopted methods such as disclaimers and verification of creator identity information to avoid risks.
Second, it is sometimes unclear whether NFT buyers can obtain intellectual property rights when purchasing NFTs, and what kind of intellectual property rights they obtain.
If NFT purchasers use NFT for exhibitions, production of derivatives, etc., there may be infringement issues.
Third, the digital objects pointed to by NFTs are generally stored off-chain. Who is obligated to store and maintain the relevant content to prevent the relevant content from being offline or deleted is also a matter of concern.
"CryptoKitties were very popular a few years ago, but now few people pay attention." Liu Fang (a pseudonym) in the currency circle believes that the value of cryptocurrency is volatile and new blockchain applications are emerging. It is better to draw conclusions.
How long is the spring of NFT?
On the one hand, it depends on the value of the NFT itself, and it also requires a joint answer from the participants in the industry ecology.
The Japan Crypto Assets Business Association has studied the business opportunities and risks related to NFTs. At the end of April this year, the association formulated NFT business guidelines to regulate sales and issuance, ensure the smooth progress of NFT business, and provide users with a safe and secure environment to promote the market. healthy growth.
Pan Helin believes that the blockchain will eventually connect all virtual and real items in our world, so that these items can be spontaneously and distributedly realized peer-to-peer transactions, without the need for a third party.
But technological advancement requires gradual progress.