Opinion | What the Heck are NFTs? Let’s Ask Beeple. (Published 2021)

NFTs have fundamentally changed the market for digital assets. Historically there was no way to separate the “owner” of a digital artwork from someone who just saved a copy to their desktop. Markets can’t operate without clear property rights: Before someone can buy a good, it has to be clear who has the right to sell it, and once someone does buy,... See more

NFTs are new keys to internet: NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are a special kind of crypto asset where each token is unique. They authenticate ownership of any kind of digital asset. NFTs represent more than unique digital objects, they are objects described by code. As such they become programmable keys to media and gaming communities.

8. Intellectual property will become less defensible in the short term but it is still cultural gold. From “my kid could do that” to “right click and save,” new media from the early 20th century onward has been poorly received. As W. David Marx writes of NFTs in Dirt, “whether or not this particular NFT bubble bursts, we should take them seriously ... See more