GRAND Magazine - Summer 2021 - 29

tech talk
Hey, how much is a non-fungible token in Bitcoin?
M
BY DEANNA SHOSS
y dad was a great ad man. In
later years we talked shop, and
he lamented industry trends
like ads with teeny tan type on a slightly
darker tan background. So minimalist
and modern. " Who can read that? " he
would argue. " You still have to know
what someone is selling! "
I can only imagine what he would say
now about non-fungible tokens. As in,
the first tweet that Twitter founder Jack
Dorsey posted was sold this week as
a " nonfungible token " for $2.9M. Yes,
that's an M for million, and yes, this really happened,
per the Wall Street Journal last March. " Mr. Dorsey's
tweet itself will continue to live on Twitter, " the article
goes on to say. But the buyer has the " real " one.
It's like buying the original cat meme.
How can you buy the " original " of a tweet or funny
clip shared hundreds of millions of times across the
web? A way to think of it is to compare it to owning
an original Renoir as opposed to a print that you can
get anywhere. You can see the Nyan Cat meme all
over the place. But there's only one original. And it
sold as an NFT for $580,000 in February.
What does blockchain have to do with this?
At its most basic, a blockchain is a list of
29 GRAND Summer 2021
transactions that anyone can view and verify. It started
as a way to move Bitcoin (a brand of cryptocurrency,
like Kleenex for tissues) from point A to point B. Now
it's used by a host of big companies, particularly in the
banking industry, to monitor and move any number of
assets around the world.*
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) function as deeds or
exclusive rights to ownership over digital assets. They
are only possible because of blockchain, which allows
a verifiable, traceable, indisputable ledger of authenticity
and ownership-you can objectively and transparently
track an NFT from the moment of the original
creation.
Are they real?
NFTs still sounds a little bit like buying swampland
in Florida to me. I bet they're very real, however,
to Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist
known as Beeple. Until last October,
the most he had ever sold a print for
was $100. In mid-March, an NFT of his
work sold for $69 million at Christie's. In
June, Fox Corp, the entertainment giant
behind Fox News and the Fox broadcast
network, created a $100 million
fund for the non-fungible token market.
That fund is part of a broader effort
announced in May that includes a new
business unit, Blockchain Creative Labs,
that will sell and administer NFTs and
other digital goods.
Again you may ask, are they real? One gauge might
be a cue that it's likely as old as business: Follow the
money. If that's the case, we will certainly see more to
come.
The art for this page is courtesy of Simon Business School at the
University of Rochester. Read more on nonfungible tokens here
DEANNA SHOSS, CEO Intercultural
Talk, Inc., helps non-digital natives
promote their businesses or life projects
with digital, intercultural and
real-life marketing. Deanna writes
for National Diversity Council and is
the tech columnist for GRAND. Learn
more InterculturalTalk.com

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0994809700/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=grandmagazi0d-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0994809700&linkId=c0cf2342749a51234e00421ef2df453e https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003B6QYSW/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=grandmagazi0d-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B003B6QYSW&linkId=74a78ba0a510c9871c2e38f745d59213 https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million https://simon.rochester.edu/blog/deans-corner/nonfungible-tokens https://www.interculturaltalk.com/ https://www.interculturaltalk.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4 https://www.grandmagazine.com/2021/05/hello-blockchain/ https://www.interculturaltalk.com/

GRAND Magazine - Summer 2021

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