I first learned about NFTs as I was just exploring cryptocurrency. My brother-in-lawn has a brother (Matt Kane) who is an artist.  My brother-in-law was telling me that Matt was going to have one of his works, an NFT, listed on Sotheby's.  Now if you go to their website, referenced below, they cite that they are the "world’s largest, most trusted and dynamic marketplace for art and luxury."  For those of you who know Sotheby's you know this is true.  It was kind of neat to know someone who was selling a work of art through there, let alone an NFT.

In order to understand NFTs, I felt like I needed to make a few just so I could understand it.  In the references below, I linked an article that helped me better understand NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens. I became a Google researcher and found Opensea, Mintable, Rarible and a few others.  Now, NFTs were not something that I wanted to devote a lot of time to, but I wanted to learn it.  I chose Opensea as they seemed to be reasonable and there was something about paying gas just twice and then you could turn anything you wanted into an NFT.

Yes, gas.  This is another term I knew nothing about.  As it turns out, "gas" in the NFT world is basically a fee you pay to make a transaction on Ethereum.  In order to get going with my own NFTs, I had to pay gas twice in order to, I guess, verify my account.  From here on out, I can mint new NFTs, list items, etc. without paying it.  Now, there are scenarios where I would have to pay gas and each of the aforementioned websites have their own rules about it.  One tip to keep in mind is that the gas fee isn't a set fee.  It can vary.  It all depends on how busy the blockchain is at that moment.  Think of it an Uber or Lyft ride.  When demand is higher for the ride service, you pay more. 

I'm not an artist, but I do photography which is an art, so I took some of my photographs and minted them into a collection.  I found Opensea a little difficult to work with but looking back it was really more my issue than theirs.  It probably would have been wise of me to spend a little more time researching it.  But, the end result is that I now have a handful of NFTs on Opensea that you can find here.

I've been thinking about NFTs and why would people purchase them.  I think first and foremost, this is giving digital artists another way to showcase and sell their work.  It's also opening up access to get content in front of potential buyers, people who are interested in your work or just digital art in general.  There is also a little prestige in that you are taking ownership of something.  When you buy it, it's yours.  Some of these are one-of-a-kind works or limited runs.  But how does one determine the value?  Really, the value of anything (tangible or not) comes down to what a buyer is willing to pay for it.  As to Matt Kane's piece mentioned at the start of this post?  If you didn't click on the link in the references yet, his work Meules after Claude Monet, sold for $214,200.

Now, I don't think any of my original photos in my Opensea collection is going to bring that, or even $2.14.  But, there is something to the NFT market that simply cannot be overlooked.  This doesn't appear to be a fad because you have a world of artists who will invest their time and talent into this as long as there are buyers willing purchase their work.  It's hard enough to sell your art, but this world has a lot of potential for digital artists and I think we are just unlocking the door to that potential.

My biggest concern about the NFT world is that this might be a little bit ahead of its time.  But, that's not a reason to shy away from it.