Earlier today, news came out that Paramount Global and RECUR, a company which "removes boundaries on fandom by creating chain-agnostic NFT experiences for the world's biggest brands" are minting a line of Star Trek-based NFTs. The introductory "season 0" line will consist of procedurally generated virtual starships (think low-detail randomized digital kitbashes) available for $250 each for a 24 hour period beginning on April 9. This is the first step in a series of digital collectable which will tie into a sort of computer game.
Honestly, since this is the original post, I'm trying to be as objective as possible and just summarized the facts, but my opinions of blockchain-based projects in general and NFTs in particular are extremely negative.
I'll save the major editorializing for the replies, but as a brief explanation for those unfamiliar with these concepts, a "blockchain" is a sort of networked ledger, where rather than having a single source for a given piece of information (the way your bank, for instance, is the single entity responsible for keeping track of how much money you have, where it came from, and who you give it to), everybody involved has a copy of the ledger, and discrepancies are resolved by majority rule, so you can't just alter your ledger to say you have a billion dollars and everyone else has nothing. Most things on these "ledgers" are basically forms of money and are thus interchangeable, like dollars or cans of soda; it doesn't matter which dollar I pay you with, every dollar is the same as every other dollar; they are "fungible," to use the economics term.
Thus, NFTs, or "Non-fungible tokens" are specific ledger-entries that aren't regarded as interchangable, each one is specific rather than just a unit of value. In the real world, something non-fungible would be a book, or a photo. You'll notice if I take the book you're reading and replace it with a random one that happens to have the same cover price, in a way you wouldn't if we swapped a pair of $20 bills. The "token" part is because the blockchain ledgers can only support a very small amount of data for a given item, not enough for an image or video or 3D model, so the actual NFT only points towards whatever it represents, typically with a web address. They're kind of like virtual receipts, or certificates of authenticity. The idea is that you can collect, trade, or sell an NFT, just like you could any unique physical object.
StarTrek.com said:
Honestly, since this is the original post, I'm trying to be as objective as possible and just summarized the facts, but my opinions of blockchain-based projects in general and NFTs in particular are extremely negative.
I'll save the major editorializing for the replies, but as a brief explanation for those unfamiliar with these concepts, a "blockchain" is a sort of networked ledger, where rather than having a single source for a given piece of information (the way your bank, for instance, is the single entity responsible for keeping track of how much money you have, where it came from, and who you give it to), everybody involved has a copy of the ledger, and discrepancies are resolved by majority rule, so you can't just alter your ledger to say you have a billion dollars and everyone else has nothing. Most things on these "ledgers" are basically forms of money and are thus interchangeable, like dollars or cans of soda; it doesn't matter which dollar I pay you with, every dollar is the same as every other dollar; they are "fungible," to use the economics term.
Thus, NFTs, or "Non-fungible tokens" are specific ledger-entries that aren't regarded as interchangable, each one is specific rather than just a unit of value. In the real world, something non-fungible would be a book, or a photo. You'll notice if I take the book you're reading and replace it with a random one that happens to have the same cover price, in a way you wouldn't if we swapped a pair of $20 bills. The "token" part is because the blockchain ledgers can only support a very small amount of data for a given item, not enough for an image or video or 3D model, so the actual NFT only points towards whatever it represents, typically with a web address. They're kind of like virtual receipts, or certificates of authenticity. The idea is that you can collect, trade, or sell an NFT, just like you could any unique physical object.
