MGR eCommerce Edge Weekly | January 27, 2021
Top News This Week
NFTs: Are They the Future of Everything Digital?
NFTs or ‘Non-Fungible Tokens’ are speading through the art and collectibles world like a wild fire. But what are they and what does a tokenized future look like?
The “fungible” in Non-Fungible Token describes something that is identical to something else. For example, a gram of gold is equal and exchangeable for any other gram of gold.
In the art world, when you buy an NFT, you are buying a token and the work of art linked to it. The transaction is registered on the blockchain, a decentralized database. The work can be unique, or in editions, but each token is unique to that work. The purchase of the NFT, registered on the blockchain, provides a permanent record of that purchase and provides proof of ownership.
You can display it on your computer or TV, print it out, or resell it. While anyone can print out or display an image from the internet, that image does not belong to them and they cannot trade it, so NFTs protect the artist’s authorship and make a secondary market possible.
Another example is the next evolution of the sports card market. The NBA has launched it’s own “collectible moments” marketplace called Top Shot. You can now buy an NBA moment and own the rights, for example, imaginge if they had this in 1988 when Michael Jordan made his unforgettable free throw line dunk that became immortalized as his logo? What would bidders be willing to pay to own that moment?
We are still in very early days of NFTs, but don’t expect them to be a fad, in fact one day the entire digital world may be tokenized.
Other Notable Links:
1. Walmart loses their head of eCommerce – MODERN RETAIL
2. Why the cost of shipping from China has skyrocketed – BLOOMBERG
3. Lexus is letting live streamers design their new cars – MARKETING DIVE
