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NFTs - What in the World Are They?

Author: Internet Collector

Wed Apr 07 2021

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THE BLOCKCHAIN - You've probably been hearing a lot about NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, over the past few months.  And there is a good reason for that.  It's a new way for people to make money.  Well, that is about the simplest explanation there could be, isn't it?  Of course it's not that simple.  If it was, you wouldn't be reading this.  You're here because you want to know why these things exist and how they work.

So let's start at the beginning.
In the beginning there was the blockchain. I'm sure you've heard some stuff about that.  People have been trading digital assets like cryptocurrency all over that thing for a few years now.  Well, NFTs are a sort of extension of that. NFTs are assets that can be saved in digital format using the blockchain.   The simple idea is that artists can create original works of art, and upload them to the blockchain, where they get their own unique identifier, and their own address.  These works exist only in that format and can only be owned by one person.  This is what gives them value.  They are like collection cards, like baseball cards, or Pokemon cards, or Magic Cards...  In fact, they are exactly like that, only in digital format.  And in that capacity they can be freely traded and sold to other collectors.  That also, is what gives them value.

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And it's not just cards.  It can be audio, videos, photos, items in video games, etc...  And this is the reason that it is so attractive to artists of all kinds.  Especially the ones that have been looking for new ways to monetize some of their art.  Or, really anyone who owns something interesting that they would like to digitize and sell.

For my part in this, I acquired a few NFTs in the form of trading cards, from a promotion in Upland. In doing so, I created a wallet where i could receive the cards, and now I own some NFTs!  Earlier today, I happened to be looking around at all the other collections and stuff.  And one of the things I noticed is that that site allows me to sell.  So I sold one of my cards.  Now I have one less card, but I have like $3 worth of local tokens (WAX) on that site.  And I am able to use that to create and sell my own.

So I did.  Just to see how it would work.  I put up one of my GIFs as an NFT.  Here is the link for my NFT.  In fact that link right there gives you a pretty good idea how this whole thing works.

I created a collection.  I created a schema (to say what it is, images, audio, etc), then uploaded one of my animated GIFs to the collection.  If that one sells, I will have to upload more.  I will also have to update that link.

Now when I go to look at the NFTs I currently own, I get a page that looks like this.

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That the one I created, as well as 2 others.  You'll see that 2 of them are for sale.

How do you get started?
I'm glad you asked...  There are hundreds of these sites out there now.  And you will likely find that every article like this one will probably tell you of a different one.  Having said that, WAX is the one that I'm using.  And here are some convenient instructions to get you going:

  1. Open an account here:  https://wallet.wax.io/
  2. Once your wallet is open, you will see what assets you have.  Which is none.
  3. Then, open this site: https://wax.atomichub.io/
  4. Let it attach itself to your WAX Wallet.

The first site is your wallet to hold your assets.  The second site is the one where you can create and sell your own NFTs.  The sites are friends and work well together.

To create and sell your own, what you do is:

  1. Create a collection.  
  2. Create a schema (what is it, image, text, etc?).  
  3. Upload your individual pieces for that collection.  
  4. Put them up for sale.

That's pretty much all you need to know.  It's a super simple process. 

Well, that's my story about NFTs, and what I know about them so far.  I'm sure there is a lot more to it, so I encourage you to check better blogs than this one to learn even more.

UPDATE:
In the time since this article was written, I started up a whole new collection.  And it has been whitelisted by AtomicHub.  So now I have an actual, bona-fide whitelisted collection!!

cc6600Card

The Web Safe Colors Collection

You can Check it out here!.

 


#bitcoin #cryptocurrency #NFT #nftcollector

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