Saturday, March 12, 2022
In November 2021, I registered for a cycling event titled TourDe100 by HDOR. It is a global 5-stage cycling challenge spread over a period of 100 days. Each stage is 20 days long and has multiple challenges which you are required to complete. As you complete the challenges, you earn points. Challenges were of the form - riding 20kms for 5 consecutive days, riding 5kms every day of the challenge, beat the previous stage mileage etc. Even if you don’t complete challenges, you are rewarded 1 point for every Km. The challenge looks easier said than done.
In order to get certified and earn a finisher medal, you need to get atleast 1500 points, which honestly now looks easier to get, but was quite a challenging task initially. The challenge started on November 20,2021 and finished on Feb 27,2022. The months of December and January are quite cold in northern India and it’s not easier to ride a bicycle without getting sick :(
With the laws of atomic habits, I somehow managed to earn 1800 points (inspite of not riding for 30+ odd days because of a variety of reasons) and guess what? I GOT MY FINISHER MEDAL DELIVERED TODAY!
It looks surreal, doesn’t it?
Can you guess what was my first reaction when I saw the medal?
Hint 01 - I work for a crypto exchange
Hint 02 - I am heavily invested in cryptocurrency
Hint 03 - My favourite crypto is ETH
Hint 04 - I believe in the idea of metaverse and digital currencies
You need more hints? Oh c’mon!!!!!
I am talking about NFTs.
I thought of turning the medal into an NFT for one very obvious reason, which is, to learn something new (I won’t lie, I am in for the money as well). Majority of the people who trade NFTs or have made a fortune out of it haven’t actually created one and hence they don’t understand the technicalities and the fundamentals behind it. The best way to learn something new is to try and explore it yourself. I have heard a number of podcasts on NFTs, read a number of articles as well, but the things I got to learn while deploying my own NFT, I am sure no one could teach me about them. To cut it short, I am gonna create my own NFT collection and teach you the same as well in this two part series. Even if you don’t have any technical background or don’t even know what NFTs are, don’t worry, I will tell you about them from scratch. Trust me, you do wanna know about NFTs!
This post is gonna be all about NFTs, and will be similar to a twitter thread I wrote back in February,2021 (long before NFTs went became a trend). If you already know what NFTs are feel free to save your precious time and jump here directly to view my NFT live on OpenSea Polygon Mumbai testnet. Let’s get started.
What is fungibility?
Fungibility is the property of an asset which enables it to be exchanged with another asset without sacrificing its value. For example: If you lend me a ₹10 note, I need not return you that exact same note, I can return you some other ₹10 note as long as it is authentic, that is issued by the Reserve Bank of India, because both the notes have the same value. Similar is the case with Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto currencies. They are all fungible by nature.
NFT whereas has a distinct value from other similar tokens. They cannot be traded for one another. Plane ticket is an example of a non Fungible token. One plane ticket is not equal to any other plane ticket.
Each non fungible token is assigned a digital hash that distinguishes it from every other NFT.
Characteristics of Non Fungible Tokens -
Rare - The value of NFT'S come from their scarcity. The developers limit the tokens to increase rarity. Scarcity is also the reason where Bitcoin gets its value from. Read more on it here.
Indivisible - You cannot divide a non fungible token like you can divide bitcoin. You either purchase the entire amount of, say, a digital art or purchase no art at all. You cannot purchase 20% of a plane ticket.
Unique - The metadata describes what makes this asset different from all the rest. This is a certificate of authenticity that you'd get with a rare painting.
Why are NFTs exciting?
Ownership: Your Twitter handle can be blocked/ taken away from you in a second (remember Donald Trump?). NFT's cannot. This is because of the use of decentralised platforms where no one can alter the data once committed.(This is however debatable, more on this later)
Transferable: NFT's solve the annoying problem of walled gardens in gaming and edtech industries. This means that an asset in a popular game could be exchanged for items in a different game, even with a complete different publisher.
Authentic: This is the underlying philosophy of blockchain technology. It's nearly impossible to create a counterfeit asset on a blockchain. Hence NFT's are authentic.
What are the use cases of NFT?
Gaming: Selling rare weapons and skins is prohibited by some famous games such as Fortnite. With NFT's you can move around these items to even other games and with complete authenticity.
Art: In this Internet era, where anything can be outsourced to a billion people with a single mouse click, digital artists face nightmares in protecting their copyrights. When you pay to buy a song on iTunes, you don't buy the song, you buy the license to listen to it.
Identity: Our educational qualifications, appearances, institutional data, medical history could be digitised with NFT's and give us greater control over our data.
Some best known NFT projects:
My Crypto Heroes
Gods unchained
Cryptokitties
Decentraland
Crypto art Brands like Nike, Samsung, Ubisoft, Formula-1 , Louis Vuitton, Vodafone have already dabbled into NFT's boosting for mainstream adoption.
Check out this link to find the top 10 most expensive NFTs and you will be shocked, literally!
I hope I was able to give a fair understanding of NFTs and why do we need them. People might think of NFTs as something really complex, but trust me they are not. Its really easy to create your own NFT and list it on a marketplace like OpenSea. In the next post I am gonna show you how to create your own NFT and get ready for the next wave of metaverse.
Meanwhile, when you were busy reading today’s post, I minted my NFT on the polygon chain and listed it on OpenSea testnet. Check out my NFT here and let the bidding begin!
In the next part, we will be deploying the NFT onto the mainnet, stay tuned.
P.S. - If you are really want to mint your own NFT and are excited for the second part of this series, follow this link to setup your metamask and comment your wallet address down so that I can send you some MATIC to cover up the gas fees for deployment onto the mainnet. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense, I will explain it all in the next post. But do comment down your wallet address in order to receive MATIC for covering up the gas fees.
See you next Saturday, until then have a great weekend :)
Cheers!
Some things that you may find interesting-
Article: How COVID stole our time and how we can get it back by Tim Urban
Movie of the week: The Big Short
Song I am listening to: Always Remember Us This Way by Lady Gaga
Thought of the week: “Write the book you want to read.”
Here are the last three posts if you were too occupied to read them: