Labeled with encryption, confirmation, uniqueness, etc., it has repeatedly encountered negative events
The fire of NFT, can prevent piracy but can not prevent thieves?
Recently, the theft caused by a "monkey" has quickly become a topic of domination on domestic social networking sites.
The reason why this "monkey" has attracted widespread attention is because it is Jay Chou's NFT collection - the boring ape.
In March last year, the artist Beeple's NFT painting "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" (Everydays: The First 5000 Days) sold for a sky-high price of $69.37 million, and NFT quickly became popular.
During this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, the price of Bingdundun's NFT digital collections soared nearly a thousand times, which also triggered a hot rush for countless people.
Nowadays, the popularity of NFT industry can be described as unprecedented, but it is accompanied by a series of negative news such as theft, infringement, and price reduction.
How to ensure the security of digital assets has also become a topic that people are more concerned about.
Why are NFT works so popular?
Nowadays, NFT works that cost tens of thousands of dollars were first born in 2017. The famous blockchain platform Ethereum launched a pixel avatar project called "CryptoPunks", which can be obtained for free in that year.
Until 2021, as NFT works have repeatedly been auctioned for sky-high prices, many celebrities have entered the venue, and NFT has begun to be known by more people.
"NFT is a non-fungible token based on blockchain technology, which is essentially a type of cryptocurrency." Su Ming, an associate researcher at the School of Cyberspace Security at Nankai University, introduced that the innovation of NFT lies in the fact that it is used in the block chain. The right is confirmed on the chain platform, that is, the unique identity is obtained, and it cannot be tampered with and copied.
And in theory, "everything can be NFT", the digital asset formed by NFT technology can be a moving picture, a painting, an avatar, a video, or even a piece of text content.
It is precisely because of the characteristics of NFT that the art collection industry, the film and television music publishing industry, and art creators are treasured.
"The binding and confirmation of NFTs and art collections makes it easier to circulate and transfer, and it can ensure the safety of art transactions." Su Ming explained that the irreplaceability of NFTs greatly reduces the possibility of counterfeiting, which It solves the problem that art collectors have been plagued by fakes for a long time.
NFT collections can realize the confirmation of assets, facilitate transaction and circulation, and improve the efficiency of realization.
Moreover, according to the transaction agreements of different platforms, each transaction of the NFT collection can allow its previous owners to obtain a certain percentage of the share.
At the same time, in industries where piracy is rampant, such as film and television, music, NFT can solve the problem of copyright protection.
The confirmation of NFT rights is exactly the copyright statement that creators need that cannot be tampered with. This kind of confirmation can provide the most reliable proof for the preservation of the original version.
"NFT technology makes it easy to track piracy, because a work has a unique ID on the blockchain. And for piracy, some technical means can be used to prevent non-compliant IDs from being viewed or listened to normally." Su Ming said.
In the future, the most ideal application scenario of NFT is the metaverse that has not yet been formed. In the existing cognition, the metaverse needs to be connected with the real scene, so NFT is an important way to connect the virtual and the real.
It can be said that if there is something in the real world, there can be NFT in the metaverse, and transactions can be completed through NFT.
It is foreseeable that NFTs will have more uses in the metaverse.
What determines the value of NFTs
In the past two years, seemingly ordinary things have been transformed into digital collections through the "enlightenment" of NFT, and their worth has doubled.
A boring ape head that cost $250 a year ago is now easily sold for $300,000.
Meanwhile, in March 2021, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sheena Estavi fetched $2.9 million for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet in 2006. NFT, the highest bid at the auction in April 2022 is only $280, and its value has shrunk to less than one tenth of a million.
The price of this day and place is also a little incomprehensible. Where is the value of NFT reflected?
It is also NFT, why is the price difference so big.
"If the NFT collection is regarded as a physical collection, its value is not difficult to understand." Su Ming explained that the value of a physical collection mainly depends on two aspects: one is the level of the creator's own artistic level, and the other is the quality of the work. The degree of public recognition, that is, the level of its consensus value.
NFT collections also follow this law of value, just like "Every Day: The First 5,000 Days", which was auctioned at a sky-high price, which was created by the creator for more than 13 years since May 2007, and there are some unique art in the works. value.
The works were auctioned through the blockchain platform, and because everyone recognized their value, the final price was raised to more than 60 million US dollars.
Some NFT collections will also be "trimmed with gold" after being "checked in" by celebrities.
Due to the collections of celebrities such as NBA star Stephen Curry, singer JJ Lin, Justin Bieber, Jay Chou, Madonna, etc., the NFT avatar of the boring ape has now become one of the most popular items in the NFT market.
"It's like some ancient calligraphy and painting collections have been collected by famous figures in history, and their worth will naturally become expensive." Su Ming said.
In addition, the value of NFT collections is also due to the existence of certain emotional factors.
For example, Su Ming said, for example, some people happened to witness the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. If there is a Bingdundun NFT collection, it will evoke good memories at that time. The NFT collection has become an emotional sustenance here, then This NFT is valuable to collectors.
At present, NFT is moving towards the traditional industry, and it is also attracting more and more creators to transfer their works to the blockchain platform.
There are many platforms at home and abroad that support users to create and upload NFT works by themselves.
The specific way that most platforms make NFT is to require users to upload pictures, 3D models and other materials to the platform, and pay a certain fee to "upload".
After NFT works are generated, foreign countries can freely set prices and conduct transactions. Due to relatively strict regulatory issues in China, NFT digital collections on some platforms cannot be transferred online for the time being, but can only be purchased.
How to avoid NFT theft
The popularity of the NFT market has also attracted some people's covetousness. The theft of Jay Chou's "monkey" is not a case.
"Although the digital signature technology used in the blockchain ensures that the private key is difficult to crack, hackers can also let users leak information through phishing links." Su Ming explained, proving that the ownership of NFT depends on its private key, and the private key is equivalent to A secret key stored on the computer, such as the private key holder opening the phishing software on the computer or maliciously installing the Trojan virus on the computer by the hacker, may lead to the leakage of the private key.
The person who has the private key becomes the owner of the NFT and can sell the NFT.
With the current technology, once the NFT is stolen, the chances of being recovered are very slim.
"Because the blockchain is a decentralized system, if the NFT is transferred to a certain address, you can only see that address at most, and cannot correspond to the person using this address, so there is no way to recover it." Su Ming said.
Moreover, due to many difficulties in characterization, pricing, and evidence collection, under the current legal background, it is still doubtful whether virtual assets including NFTs can be legally protected.
How to protect your NFT?
Because the most common method of stealing NFT is to use phishing emails, that is, in the form of email links, to lure operators to connect digital wallets to fake websites, and then steal NFTs.
Therefore, Su Ming suggested, first, never click on unidentified links; second, keep the NFT private key safe. Once the private key or mnemonic is leaked, the account will no longer belong to you. Therefore, do not disclose the private key to anyone on any occasion; third, some operations are best done without the Internet, and try not to let the private key go online. In addition, the private key can be kept in traditional ways such as safes and hardware wallets.
Our reporter Chen Xi