Demystifying the NFT — A Series of Conversations from the WAGMANs Community

Alison Alexander, Val Bercovici, Deborah Perry Piscione, Jennifer Sertl

Context

You are probably familiar with the notarization function. If you have a document like a will or an important contract you go to a notary public that has the ability to verify that the document is authentic. The note goes on a ledger as an official certification of authenticity of the entity, information or the document. NFT’s are fundamentally the full automation of that notary function. Thus, the term non-fungible token (NFT). The ability to notarize almost anything that is digital online and at scale is a real disruption to current business models and has proven to be incredibly powerful for the creator community — music, art, gaming. The use cases of this technology is flourishing in pop culture due to the amplification of celebrities. We are just beginning to see an emerging breadth of companies and brands become involved. The gaming sector has another strategy. Instead of going the NFT route, game studios have encouraged their players to own game assets through “play to earn”” strategies.

Purchasing Your First NFT

Climbers scaling Mt. Everest need sherpas who help with contextual intelligence of the terrain, so too, Web3. We can’t possibly expect ourselves to watch a youtube video and understand all the nuance that goes on. So if you have already purchased your first NFT great, who can you teach to bring them along?

Here are some fundamental steps to your first NFT.

We are not endorsing any of the agencies that we mention. We are merely using their names as an example to support clarity on the translation. Think of Coinbase as a traditional bank and MetaMask as a traditional checkbook and OpenSea as your local mall.

1. Set up Coinbase (or other recommendations) Account
2. Purchase Ethereum (or desired currency)
3. Get an intermediary -as an example MetaMas
4. Get your password / passcodes in 4–5 safe places so that you will always have
5. Find what you want to purchase in the marketplace — OpenSea as an example
6. Transfer your QR code or account number to make the exchange (It costs between $50-$70 value in Ethereum — the exchange rate is called gas)
7. Wait for minting to take place
8. Claim your asset
9. Enjoy your asset — it is your asset so you can make wall hangings, integrate your images into blogs, design clothing with your print
10. Help someone else get into this space

Caveat Emptor

Unfortunately even in OpenSea within a verifiable collection, there can be fraud. It is really important that you are extremely careful with the exact name and symbols of each NFT as well as get involved with the NFT community. We learned from the early days of eBay and Amazon that consumer protections will increase as the marketplace matures. Which means that communities like ours are more important than ever to share the good and the bad stories.

We look forward to meeting you IRL May 18–20 at the Web3 Summit.

Join our Wagmas DOA Discord

Follow us Twitter @Web3_Summit

This is the second of a 12 post series I am writing.

1/12: Demystifying Web3