Twitter

People can’t stop talking about NFTs – 19 non-fungible tweets

Poke Staff. Updated February 14th, 2022

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are collectible digital assets, such as pictures, videos or sound clips that are bought and sold using cryptocurrency. They’re unique digital properties, representing images or files that may not themselves be unique.

For example, personalised pictures of apes are the in-thing right now.

Unfortunately, the environmental cost of NFTs is enormous, with some estimates saying that a single NFT has the carbon footptint of at least one month’s worth of electricity for a resident of the EU.

This explanation of NFTs from queersamus on Tumblr might be the most brutally honest explanation out there.

Imagine if you went up to the Mona Lisa and you were like “I’d like to own this” and someone nearby went “Give me 65 million dollars and I’ll burn down an unspecified amount of the Amazon rainforest in order to give you this receipt of purchase”.

So you paid them and they went “Here’s your receipt, thank you for your purchase” and went to an unmarked supply closet in the back of the museum and posted a handmade label inside it behind the brooms that said “Mona Lisa currently owned by jacobgalapagos” so if anyone wants to know who owns it they’d have to find this specific closet in this specific hallway and look behind the correct brooms.

And you went “Can I take the Mona Lisa home now?” and they went “Oh God, no. Are you stupid? You only bought the receipt that says you own it, you didn’t actually buy the Mona Lisa itself, you can’t take the real Mona Lisa, you idiot. You CAN take this though.” and gave you the replica print in a cardboard tube that’s sold in the gift shop.

Also the person selling you the receipt of purchase has at no point in time ever owned the Mona Lisa.

Unfortunately, if this doesn’t really make sense or seem like any logical person would be happy about this exchange, then you’ve understood it perfectly.

Love them or loathe them, people can’t stop talking about them.

Mostly with tongues firmly in cheeks.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Article Pages: 1 2