How to earn from NFT’s?

You don't need much to make a lot of money with NFT’s. Actually, you don't need anything. As in the case of a man named Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali. The boy posted a series of his selfies using this network, which have been taken every day for the past four years and were ultimately used to make a graduation video. Ghozali set the starting price at $3. NFT enthusiasts decided, however, that poorly made photos of a teenager are an excellent investment and they quickly started to fight with each other in order to buy them. As a result, over a million dollars in cryptocurrencies was sent to Ghozali's account. The most expensive picture was sold for over 700 euros! However, this is not the only staggering investment made recently. 12-year-old Benyamin Ahmed from London also managed to earn his fortune on NFT tokens. The boy gained 290,000 pounds, selling digital images of a whale online. He used his own program to prepare the work. The entire Weird Whales collection consists of 3,350 whale-emoji, which differ from each other in small details.

A quick reminder

For those of you who still don't quite know what a NFT is, I'm here to explain. This acronym stands for Non-Fungible Token, which is an unchangeable, undateable digital certificate confirming that an item - digital or physical - is owned by someone. It is based on blockchain technology, making it impossible to be hacked (at least so far). In the digital world it can serve as ownership, and yet we can own not only our house or car, but also digital goods (Internet Goods), which today are increasingly becoming a measure of status. Simply put, it is a digital signature of authenticity. You can download a copy of a gif, meme or image from the web, but it will still be a copy. But you can also have the original. By comparison, you can buy an original Klimt or Beksinski, but you can also own a reproduction. When buying these paintings, the authenticity is guaranteed by the painters' signature, as well as physical documentation. (e.g. Gustav Klimt, The Kiss owned by John B.)

NFT’s have changed the rules of the game on the art market, but the NFT market itself is as unstable as the artistic field. You never know what will catch on, what will be considered valuable, who will make money on what and how much. For now, we can't fully understand the value of NFT’s. Perhaps it's like the works of modern art in the early 20th century - those buying them weren't sure if they could make money. But they sensed that it would take time for their value to become apparent. Of course, everything may turn out to be a speculative bubble that will burst spectacularly in a few years or even a few months, but for the time being thousands of people are looking for luck by listing their (art) works on NFT exchanges. It is a bit of a dangerous investment compared to looking for gold to mine. More catching a chance than hard work, but that is what makes NFT’s so popular.

Is it worth investing in NFT?

Experts argue that investing in tokens does not require as strong nerves as tracking the price of cryptocurrencies, which in recent weeks - unlike NFT’s - have been wildly volatile. Tokenization of artworks is slowly becoming a standard for many auction houses and a refuge for investors, which may mean that an increasing amount of people are starting to invest for the long-term. Those who live in the world of digital currency are simply used to the fact that even one sentence of Elon Musk or a decision of any large government wobbles the valuation of cryptocurrencies. According to a study by DappRadar, a data collection and analysis company that tracks the NFT industry, the top 100 NFT collections collectively lost 15 percent of their value during the same period that the two most popular cryptocurrencies fell by half.

Celebrities go for the novelty

In 2021, celebrities around the world invested in NFT (Eminem and Paris Hilton among others). Justin Bieber bought one of the collector's items for 500 ETH, or about $1.3 million, and thus joined the elite Bored Apes Yacht club. An important consideration for investors, however, is the utility of NFTs. In the case of the Bored Apes Yacht Club, buying a token is just (though arguably for celebrities as far as) a ticket to a prestigious group of millionaires, while other tokens give you the opportunity to participate in the game, or allow you to create your own space in a metaverse.

High hopes and reality

The world of technology is a space of wonder and awesomeness. It's the only place where you can make quick money from something absurd. NFT, fortunately, is not based on miracles, but on the phenomenon of novelty, uniqueness. In theory, anyone can become a millionaire using this technology. In practice, there is no recipe for success, and you can only hope for big money. Trying, however, can cost you. Not only you, but nature as well. After all, beating NFT is quite energy intensive. The fact that energy-consuming blockchain technology can be a problem we have already heard several times. Blockchain technology is a good idea on many levels and it has a promising future, but this should not come with high environmental costs.

In response to this criticism, more and more 'green equivalents' of blockchains are appearing on the market, which reduce the harmful impact on the environment in different ways. Regardless, NFT’s are a fledgling, interesting world. However, it is possible that for the time being we are not yet able to fully understand the value and importance of NFT’s. Not just for the art market, but the internet in general. Will it be a tournament of miracles or will tokens even become a new foundation of digital reality?