What are NFTs? It stands for non-fungible token though it's not helpful to know the meaning of the acronym, I know. So here:

 

Think of a dollar bill as a token. Think of a concert ticket at a non-fungible token. You can split the dollar bill up - into halves, quarters and other change variations. A ticket? Can't split that. Also, a dollar can be swapped with another dollar and it's the same value. A concert ticket has different value depending on the date, seats, band - you get the idea...

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With crypto currency, Bitcoins are the dollars and in this context, NFTs are collectibles, pieces of digital art like you see above. So while you may be able to break up and swap out a Bitcoin or Doge coin or whatever coin, not so with these digital, collectible pieces of art. An NFT is a stand-alone token with its assigned value.

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The value is granted by belief in its value, similar to all money and all collectibles... like a rare baseball card or a mint condition star wars action figure from 1982. If you're wondering why can't you just screen shot it or right-click, "save image as" and download it, it's the same as an IRL collectible. It's about owning the piece. You can always print out a Monet, frame it and hang it, but is that as cool as owning an actual Monet? It's not. Same with NFTs.

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You see, this is the seed of reality before Ready Player One or the Matrix. The part they leave out when they get to the movie. So while a lot of NFTs out there right now are strange bro-y crypto fan art or 8-bit game pieces, it's really just a burgeoning technology we're frothing at the mouth for which to find applications because we've longed to be able to imitate life digitally and these little tokens are baby steps in exchanging goods online and making sure artists are compensated and celebrated for the work they do.

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I, dinomonster, have been dabbling in many mediums for many years. I make a living in television which is a concert of video, audio, music and collaborating with other artful humans. For me, NFTs are a natural extension to something I've always done in my own little sandbox off to the side. So here we are. Yay. Fun.

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If you're still curious and have no idea where to start, you'll need to endure the following arduous schooling tasks: do a lot of Bitcoin 101 tutorials (concepts in decentralization and blockchain tech), learn about the 2nd place cryptocurrency Ethereum because of its contracts and tokens, then hop on an exchange (go ahead and do Coinbase to start, especially if in NY), purchase some ETH, wait an agonizing 7 days before you can heave it off the exchange into your well-researched wallet, where you then browse sites like OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, KnownOrigin and engage.

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