Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been getting a lot of media attention over the past year. This is, no doubt, partly a consequence of celebrities auctioning their NFTs for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. For example, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9m (£2.4m approx). This creates a sense of hype and celebrity status, giving the impression that everyone can create an NFT and then auction it off for millions of dollars.
Whenever there is money to be had, unscrupulous activity comes to the surface. Unfortunately, that’s human nature. We have observed all sorts of scams – from phishing scams to bidding scams to fake NFTs (for example, OpenSea reported that over 80 per cent of NFTs minted using its minting tool were fake). NFT marketplaces have taken measures to prevent fraudulent behaviour on their platforms, and we will see increasing consumer protection as the tech matures.
We must, however, look beyond the hype and the scams, as the core power of NFTs is authentication. NFTs are here to stay, because the possibilities are boundless and go beyond collectables and celebrities’ tweets or photos. The future of NFTs lies in business and economic applications.
Whatever we do in our everyday life is transaction-based. To facilitate any transaction and the transfer of ownership, authentication is key. A transfer of ownership will not occur without authenticating the assets being transferred and the persons (or entities), who are…
