Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Azuki: these are just a few of the names you may have heard thrown around in relation to the NFT craze that shocked 2021; a storm that not only rocked the tech world but spilled into the everyday household as well. With headlining events including Visa purchasing CryptoPunk #7610 for $150,000 in August 2021, a 77-second segment on the Tonight Show in which Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon speaking about their Bored Ape collections in January 2022, and most recently, the almost-defunct-turned-meme-company GameStop announcing their intentions to develop an NFT marketplace, it’s hard to see a world in which NFTs do not find some market share.
One can analyze the concept of Non-Fungible Tokens from countless angles, from the artistic to the technical to even the social and financial. Individuals ranging from a multitude of backgrounds dive into unknown waters for a multitude of different reasons. While some (e.g., my girlfriend) may consider that, in its current state, it’s just another form of wealth-flaunting and gatekeeping, others see it as the future of digital fingerprinting.
As someone with a degree in Computer Science and a comfort in the crypto space, I sat idly through the peak of the NFT craze in 2021. I am only now deciding to throw myself into the thick of things. I hope to use my writing as a way to solidify my understanding of the multi-faced monster that has made its way to society’s front porch. My goal is to tackle each concept in depth, and from multiple angles, but with a focus on explaining it all from the mindset of a beginner. Hopefully you will find them as insightful and thought-provoking to read as I do to write.
