Hey,
A crypto-exclusive fund, Metapurse, recently bought ‘Everydays - The First 5000 Days' – a jpeg file – by an artist who goes by the pseudonym Beeple for $69.3 million (roughly INR 503 crores).
That raised a lot of eyebrows around what exactly did the buyer buy and got everyone tweeting about NFTs. Naturally, I was curious to know what NFTs are and what is the fuss about. So, with this…
One Thing I Learned
From what I read, I understood that non-fungible tokens are digital assets that contain identifying information recorded in contracts expressed as a piece of code that are designed to carry out a set of instructions, or “smart contracts”.
As Melanie Kramer and Daniel Phillips explain,
It’s this information that makes each NFT unique, and as such, they cannot be directly replaced by another token. They cannot be swapped like for like, as no two NFTs are alike. Banknotes, in contrast, can be simply exchanged one for another; if they hold the same value, there is no difference to the holder between, say, one dollar bill and another.
Now coming to the piece of art that was bought for $69.3 million, Everydays - The First 5000 Days. What I was curious about was that if NFT is just a few lines of codes that includes a reference to the art (the art doesn’t even live in the NFT since it would be way too much data to put on the Ethereum blockchain) can someone not go make another NFT of the exact same piece of art right now? The answer is yes, anyone can make another NFT for the same piece. But it wouldn’t be worth anything because it wouldn’t have an authentic origin. The authenticity of the piece can be easily verified since everything on the Ethereum blockchain is legible.
To further illustrate why the source of origin is important, I will take the help of the example that Nat Eliason used,
Tuition at Carnegie Mellon is $57,119 per year. At the end of four years, you receive a piece of paper. Is that piece of paper worth $228,476? You could just photoshop your name into this one and call it a day. But it’s not the piece of paper, it’s the origin of the paper and what it tells people. It tells people you spent 4 years, and enough money to save 65 lives from malaria, learning… something. Hopefully. And therefore they should pay you more than the otherwise indistinguishable student a few miles away.
If you want to learn more about NFTs, you can start with the link above. It’s a beginner’s guide into the world of Non-Fungible Tokens.
Study Music to Try
I thought of sharing some things other than tools and apps that may be useful for you. So, in this edition, I am sharing the following two tracks which I find great for focussed work. Check them out and let me know if they work for you.
One Question from the Readers
Is perception everything?
This is a question that has been plaguing philosophers for a long time and one that requires deep deliberation from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and probably spirituality. Since I am not a pro in any of these disciplines I will just present my point of view and my understanding from my limited reading on this subject.
The thing about perception is that it is the way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something. It is a mental impression of how an individual sees things around them. For example, have you observed how your perception of a celebrity, one you used to regard very highly, completely changes when you read news of some misconduct by them? How the use of punctuation modifies the meaning and impression of a sentence (A woman without her man is nothing. --- A woman: without her, man is nothing.)? Marketers and magicians rely on this fact to make you see things – the way they want you to see them. So, there's no denying the fact a lot of how we see things is because of our perception. But I am not fully on board with the idea that perception is everything.
We are limited by our senses to experience objective reality. For example, we only see some colors of the rainbow on a regular day from our naked eyes. We can only hear a defined range of sounds. But, just because we can’t perceive a dog whistle doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in reality. There may be different aspects of a situation that we are not aware of and we perceive only a fraction of that entire spectrum. Maybe perception helps to define a subjective social reality but it is not the objective reality and hence, according to me is not everything.
This issue’s Bonus Section - A Heartwarming Video
I saw this video of a little boy catching his first fish with his family and it filled my heart. One and half minutes of pure bliss.
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See you soon. Cheers!
Very well articulated Srishti!
It's so true our eyes only see what our mind is ready to comprehend.