NFTs could be the most bizarre things produced in the last few years; I have heard them explained in so many ways, yet I feel that I still barely understand what they are and how they work. Yet despite their strangeness, NFTs, like cryptocurrency, have the potential to become extremely valuable and profitable.
When I first heard of NFTs, I thought they were just another form of digital art that people were paying way too much for. But, as Drs. Quinn and Johnathan Button showed in their presentation at OSU (NFTs: More Than Digital Art), NFTs can be much more than digital art. They have been tied to many more aspects of life, including sports, fashion, music, video gaming, and, virtual social interaction.
The issue I had with NFTs that prevented me from accepting them as valuable was that most NFTs in the form of art didn't even seem like art to me. For example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, in my opinion, are painful to look at, and I couldn't understand how anyone could be proud of owning them. There could be many reasons why people would want to have them, such as wanting to show them off on your apple watch, but I think it essentially has to do with people wanting to make online digital products more valuable in order to sell them for profit. This has interesting philosophical implications, because NFTs can become valuable because people want them to be more valuable. How else could a Nyan Cat NFT have been sold for $560,000?
After I came to grips with that issue and listened to what the Buttons had to say, I came to the conclusion that NFTs can become extremely profitable because of the demand for and/or rarity of them. A good example is how Adidas made 30,000 online NFTs that could be redeemed for real and unique shoes and clothes. Because these NFTs were available to the whole world, and because there were only 30,000 of them, the demand for them was extremely high, so the Buttons knew they would end up being profitable.
So, there is no question in my mind that NFTs can become as valuable as gold, if not more valuable. But I still have to wonder how great some NFTs really are, especially Metaverse NFTs. It seems to me that digital products, and now even digital social interaction, are slowly becoming more valued than physical products and face-to-face social interaction. It makes me wonder if reality is becoming less important to people. To me, digital items should not be the center of anyone's life. It can be good to use them to make profit, such as through NFTs, but I think it should be remembered that the profit made from NFTs should be used to benefit the real lives of people.