HOW NFTS GOT STARTED
Written by Rahsaana Ison
Have you ever wondered where NFTS came from? Really, come on? Who invented this and why? You and I are friends, therefore I have to be completely open and honest with you. To be honest, in the beginning, I didn't care. I was only trying to wrap my mind around the concept of owning a digital image. Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a Damn. No, I didn't give 2 red scents on who made NFTs I only wanted to buy low and sell high. I think it's like playing the lottery. I just want to win big like I was seeing many others do with their NFTs I wanted to be rich! That's a story for another time. After I decided to become a creator and not just a consumer I needed to know the origin of an NFT. This is when I kicked into high gear. I wished to be able to explain to others how the first NFT came to be. I had to carefully recall all of the discussions I had regarding NFTs in the past. I've been attending classes and studying, but nobody — and I mean nobody — has ever brought it up. I also wanted to know who came up with the brilliant idea. I started on my journey and I found what I was looking for.
Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash developed Quantum, the first known "NFT," in May 2014. It comprised a video clip created by Jennifer McCoy, McCoy's wife. A live presentation for the Seven on Seven conference was taking place at the New Museum in New York City when McCoy registered the video on the Namecoin network and sold it to Dash for $4. The technology was referred to as "monetized graphics" by McCoy and Dash. Through on-chain information, this formally connected a non-fungible, tradeable blockchain marker to a piece of art (enabled by Namecoin). In contrast, other blockchains and counterparties use multi-unit, fungible, metadata-free "hued currencies."
Three months after the debut of the Ethereum blockchain, in October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, was introduced and put on display at DEVCON 1 in London, Ethereum's first developer conference. The majority of Etheria's 457 hexagonal tiles that could be bought and traded remained unsold for more than five years until March 13, 2021, when a buying frenzy was spurred by rekindled interest in NFTs. This is living proof that you shouldn’t count yourself out. Though the vision may tarry, I have heard this many times as a child. “For still the vision awaits its appointed time…. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3, ESV) All tiles from the previous and current versions, each hardcoded at 1 ETH (US$0.43 at launch), were sold for a combined total of US$1.4 million in less than 24 hours. Yes, you read that right ETH was only $0.43. Don’t you wish you would have believed or better yet don't you wish you would have been exposed to these types of ventures? Were you told about this by someone you thought was creepy and weird? Here’s one of my personal favorites, Noah’s ark. If you were born in the biblical day would you have laughed at Noah or would you have taken the offer? I want you to think about that the very next time you hear of something you think is so far-fetched. Now on the flip side, make sure you study to show yourself approved. Do your own research. Buyer beware!
An NFT solely represents as proof of ownership of a digital asset and does not necessarily imply that the owner possesses intellectual property rights to the digital asset the NFT purports to represent. Someone may sell an NFT that represents their work, but the buyer will not necessarily receive copyrights to that work, and the seller may not be prohibited from creating additional NFT copies of the same work. According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet, "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever the art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred."
So this is a great day for creatives. Once an artist sells an NFT they can have a piece of that NFT for life. Your family and loved ones can also have royalties one you've to be passed down for generations and this is so important for wealth building. This is only a brief story of how NFT’s got started. I am sure others had this idea as well but they may not have acted on the creation. Don’t be a coulder, woulder, shoulder, and be a doer.
Disclaimer: This is what I was able to find. I would hate to be the one to spread erroneous information. I didn’t use a biased approach to do my research. I used Brave and Presearch while finding this information. However, If you know something that I don’t know please by all means do tell.
