Part 1: NFTs are not Cryptocurrency
If you’re new to Crypto and NFT, or just tired of explaining it, here’s a mini-series that explains it quickly and easily. Feel free to share. This is not financial advice, do your own research.
First off, crypto currency is not an NFT.
NFTs are built on top of the blockchain code that crypto is built on.
The Blockchain is essential WEB3.
We’re on WEB2 right now, but not for long.
WEB3 is the future, and it will be built on blockchain technology and allow more public ownership of data rather than concentrating it in the hands of the few (Google, Facebook, etc.)…there’s a lot more to it, but that’s all you need to know to get started.
Bitcoin (BTC) was the first cryptocurrency, but its blockchain is limited in that all it really does is represent a Bitcoin.
Side note: The only reason a Bitcoin has any value is because someone’s willing to pay for it. Which is the same reason a dollar has any value. Or art. Or anything else.
Ethereum (ETH) changed that by creating a blockchain that contracts and actions could be added to. So, you can own an ETH (or any part of one ETH, just like you can own part of a bitcoin, or part of a dollar [aka “change”]), but you can also own an NFT that’s built on ETH.
Basically, an NFT is a “non fungible token”.
Non-Fungible simply means unique, not duplicatable.
Token is simply the representation of “something” that’s built on the blockchain.
Technically, it doesn’t matter what the token is, but mostly we recognize them as the JPGs that people are selling.
But what you’re really buying is the underlying code that these JPGs represent.
Think of it like a membership. If you have a membership card, that’s your token that shows your membership, but in and of itself, that card is not your membership.
This is different than crypto because a Bitcoin is a Bitcoin in the same way a Dollar is a Dollar. It doesn’t matter which dollar you own, it’s still worth a dollar and is interchangeable with any other dollar.
An NFT, in contrast, is unique. Even if you own an NFT in the same collection as others (like when we launch our Bike Club NFTs), each one within that collection is uniquely identifiable from the others.
What’s interesting is that your ownership of a token is recorded on the Blockchain, and everyone can see that “you” own it, who owned it before you, and before them, all the way back to who created it. The full transaction history is recorded.
