If people aren’t talking about crypto, they’re talking about NFTs. But here is the thing, you can’t have an NFT without crypto. Confusing? Below, we’ll run you through what an NFT is, what it has to do with cryptocurrency, and why film Director Quentin Tarantino is getting sued over them.
Let’s start from the beginning
We get it, NFTs are confusing, no matter how many times your best friend tries to explain to you what they are. Here’s an easy way to try and think of them:
NFT = non-fungible tokens. ‘Non-fungible’ essentially means that it is irreplaceable, or a unique copy of something. So when speaking of NFTs, it’s essentially owning a unique copy of something – a unique digital token (a token is another name for a digital receipt) verified by the owner. It could be an album, an artwork or a meme – even when you see thousands of copies of it out there, you’ll know you have an original. NFTs are particularly popular within digital art.
The selling point of an NFT is that the artwork (or whatever product you purchase) appreciates in value, and that you can sell it later for much more than you bought it – kind of like physical art. Think of it as like a digital collector’s item.
Right okay, but where do cryptocurrencies come in?
Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum (a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin) blockchain (a blockchain is a distributed record of all transactions of a particular cryptocurrency), which supports these NFTs. Hypothetically speaking, if you were wanting to purchase a specific NFT, and that NFT is on the Ethereum network (which most are), you would need to use Ethereum to purchase it.
What happened recently?
Yesterday, film Director Quentin Tarantino was sued by Production company Miramax after Tarantino planned to create and auction seven NFTs related to his work on the movie Pulp Fiction. Included in the planned NFTs are copies of handwritten script pages for uncut versions of scenes from the film. Miramax is claiming the move violates copyright laws. The NFTs were due to go on sale next month.
