Redistributed from: OETA-TV
Crypto blockchain NFT’s, web 3.0 For many of us, those are terms that represent a whole new language and way of doing business that we frankly don’t understand. So I recently interviewed Connor Borrego, a young expert in nonfungible token, to learn more about what they are and how they work. Connor, let’s start simple. What exactly are nonfungible tokens?
NFT stands for nonfungible token. And what I think is easiest to think about an NFT as is a digital identifier for a piece of media that lives on the internet. And so you can see that it’s gotten a lot of hype because of collectible images, collectible video game components, and now collectible music. But we see this as a huge opportunity for content creators across the board. The quick synopsis of this is basically that when this data is registered to the blockchain, right, you can now treat it as scarce or collectible prints that are created. So just like in that scenario where there is an artificial scarcity created from one of a kind original and then a limited edition series of prints, you can replicate that on the blockchain using NFTs. And so that’s what we’re seeing with art and with music.
The old fog in me says, hold on, I want to see and touch and feel a piece of artwork. What do you say to us?
So I think that that’s a great question. I think that a lot of people get hung up on this idea that digital artwork, why would I ever want that? It’s a new way to secure the authenticity and ownership of artwork. And so that gets back to why I was saying that this is much bigger opportunity for content creators and anyone working in the media space, because anyone who produces digital content has a reason to care about NFTs.
Whether you’re looking to purchase or looking to create, how do you make money off of this?
So when you think about NFTs from a financial perspective, yes, there are collectibles today. You could collect artwork. And whether or not that’s a viable financial institution, people collect sneakers, people collect purses. It’s more akin to that. But in terms of the future of NFTs, it’s around licensing and managing data related to the advertising ecosystem and other business intelligence big data systems. There are videos, there’s images, there’s comments. Each one of those individual interactions are valuable pieces of data that inform advertising algorithms.
Why would you say, hey, you need to add an NFT to your portfolio in addition to these traditional ways of creating wealth?
If you have faith that the brand is going to be around long term, then purchasing one of their collectibles, if it’s meaningful to you, could be a great investment opportunity for some people right now. But for the vast majority of people, I think the technology is still very early and that we’re going to see it develop a lot further before we see regular retail investors see this as a viable opportunity for their 401Ks. The potential of a recession is with us and that is affecting no cryptocurrency right now.
Is it affecting NFTs within the stock market?
I think we’ve seen some of the biggest pullbacks from the tech stocks and that’s being reflected in the cryptocurrency markets as well as in the NFT markets. A lot of liquidity is drying up for projects and different groups who are out here trying to build on the blockchain either through NFT projects or directly through blockchain development. The uses for NFTs and this technology is somewhat still in its infancy. Like, we’re not exactly sure exactly all of the applications for this at this point.
You got a pretty good idea where it’s headed?
There is a pretty predictable and sizable emerging NFT industry that we’re going to see. But yes, we are very much still early stages of the technology, still early stages of the companies that are coming out in their use cases. It is dependent upon a separate technology blockchain, which, as we know, is also still super volatile and in its infancy.
Connor Borrego with the UniPro. Thank you very much. I learned a lot today and there’s still much more I need to learn, I think.
Thanks so much for having me on today, Rich, and glad that we could try to eliminate some of the details around NFTs and obviously there’s still more work if you don’t understand this topic.
