
Gemini, Cryptopedia
The NFT space has won the appeal of gamers, artists, luxury consumers, and digital-cat enthusiasts, yet uses for non-fungible tokens just keeps on expanding.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — also known as “nifties” — are unique, indivisible, and provably scarce digital assets that are useful in gaming, art, and ensuring the provenance of luxury goods. Since the success of CryptoKitties in late 2017, the application of NFTs has grown rapidly, proving the functionality of blockchain in sectors far beyond finance and cryptocurrency.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique, indivisible digital assets created on blockchains. Each NFT’s uniqueness can be proven by its unique label created by making use of specialized cryptographic code, and no token can be interchanged for another. In this way, NFTs are different from fungible assets like bitcoin or fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. One bitcoin is always the same as any other bitcoin in circulation, and as such, units of bitcoin can be interchanged.
Most NFTs are built using the ERC-721 token standard, an Ethereum-compatible identifier that was created by the developers of CryptoKitties. Since CryptoKitties first achieved widespread notoriety with non-fungible token technology in 2017, the industry for NFTs has grown significantly. Now, it is commonplace to find NFTs in gaming, collectibles, and art. NFTs are even used to ensure the provenance (historical record of ownership) of luxury goods. Non-fungible tokens can also be bought, sold, and traded on digital marketplaces like OpenSea and Nifty Gateway.
Here’s an overview of where you can use NFTs today, and what you can do with them:
After the success of CryptoKitties, a number of copycats surfaced. Today, there are puppies, monsters, and even crypto celebrity NFTs that you can collect.
CryptoKitties itself evolved beyond just a digital collectible platform. CryptoKitties users can interact with third-party applications to customize and play with their digital cats.
One of the leading use cases for NFTs today is gaming. Following blockchain-first game developers to market, legacy game developers like Ubisoft are now experimenting with the technology.
As of December 2020, the top NFT-based games include:
NFTs provide several benefits for digital artists and collectors. Before NFTs, the inability to verify the authenticity of digital art made the industry challenging to monetize. Now, blockchain technology can track unique digital art in the form of NFTs and can also verify its provenance, authenticity, and scarcity.
Some of the most popular NFT art marketplaces are SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, Know Origin, and MakersPlace. The mainstream art world has also taken notice. Prestigious art auction house Christie’s New York recently sold its first piece of NFT art — a circular panel inscribed with 300,000 digits of Bitcoin code that reacts to its geographical location and time of day — for $131,250 U.S. dollars
Owning the perfect domain name can mean increased traffic to your website and, in turn, increased profits. Domains are scarce, and purchasing the right one is often costly and time-consuming. Linking a domain to an NFT creates an immutable history of its journey for tracking purposes. It also makes it easier to buy, sell, and trade a domain — without any middlemen. Additionally, NFT domains can easily plug into other NFT systems. For example, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains are two providers of domains linked to NFTs.
Counterfeiting is a problem often faced by the producers of consumer goods. The global impact of counterfeit goods is expected to reach $4.2 trillion by 2022. Customers want to know that the exclusive hoodie, purse, or rare diamond they have purchased is authentic. Real world objects linked to NFTs offer a way to track the lifecycle and journey of the item and verify its authenticity. Louis Vuitton is experimenting with NFTs to solve this problem, along with other brands within the LVMH conglomerate and diamond specialist De Beers.
As the NFT industry grows, developers are looking to make improvements on the ERC-721 token standard and offer entrepreneurs more flexibility. ERC-1155, for instance, is a standard that allows for a single smart contract to manage multiple token types — including fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens, and tokens that fall in between both classifications.
NFTs have expanded blockchain use cases in business sectors far beyond finance, while appealing to a diverse audience of gamers, artists, luxury consumers, and digital cat enthusiasts alike. The NFT space is just starting to reach its initial adoption phase, and non-fungible tokens have the potential to vastly alter our relationship with the digital world by introducing object-based verifiable digital scarcity.
Cryptopedia does not guarantee the reliability of the Site content and shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. The opinions and views expressed in any Cryptopedia article are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions of Gemini or its management. The information provided on the Site is for informational purposes only, and it does not constitute an endorsement of any of the products and services discussed or investment, financial, or trading advice. A qualified professional should be consulted prior to making financial decisions. Please visit our Cryptopedia Site Policy to learn more
The NFT space has won the appeal of gamers, artists, luxury consumers, and digital-cat enthusiasts, yet uses for non-fungible tokens just keeps on expanding.
Gemini is a next generation cryptocurrency exchange and custodian that allows customers to buy, sell, and store digital assets.
Vault12 Digital Inheritance is the first solution to offer a simple, direct, and secure way to ensure cryptocurrency, NFTs, and other Web3 digital assets can be inherited by future generations.
Digital Inheritance enables investors to designate an individual or a mobile device as a guardian that will inherit their entire portfolio of digital assets (seed phrases,private keys, digital art and other secrets) inside a secure digital Vault once the time comes, eliminating undue risk and the need to continually update an inventory or issue updated instructions which result in privacy leakage.
Designed to be used alongside traditional hardware, software, and online wallets, Vault12 Guard helps cryptocurrency owners, professional crypto traders, and high-net-worth investors safeguard their digital assets without storing anything in the cloud or in fact, any one single location. This increases protection and decreases the risks of loss.
The Vault12 Guard app enables secure decentralized backups, and provides legacy inheritance for all your web3 digital assets, including NFTs, wallet seed phrases, secrets like keys, PIN codes, DAO project keys, and digital art.
Whether your digital art is suitable for a phone, or represents much higher resolution multimedia, make sure that you have backed up a copy in case the resource link is disrupted in the future. Digital art can easily be added to the Vault either via the mobile app or via the desktop utility. Once you have stored your artwork in your Vault, it will also benefit from inheritance once you activate that in your app.
As a creator, you can use Vault12 Guard to safeguard not just your NFT and crypto wallets but also your original digital artwork. Project creators will always have to deal with multiple wallets - inventory, treasury, as well as future royalty wallets.
Vault12 Guard safeguards your project assets, increasing protection and decreasing the risks of loss whilst ensuring that everything is ready to be passed onto future generations when the need arises. This is creative security.
Step-by-step guides for setting up your digital Vault and adding assets, inheriting and restoring Vaults. Vault12 Guard helps you inherit and back up all assets stored in your Vault, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, crypto, private keys, seed phrases, wallets, NFTs, and digital art.