What’s an NFT? Well, no one actually knows, but people are apparently willing to pay outrageous sums of money to get them. The other day, I saw that an NFT for a short YouTube video originally posted in 2007 called “Charlie Bit My Finger” sold for $761,000. Now, you are probably saying, “wait a minute, if the video has been available to watch for free for more than a decade, what is the buyer actually paying for?” As near as I can tell, an NFT is essentially the legal right to claim you own something you don’t actually own. If that makes very little sense to you, join the club.
Typically, this is the point in the discussion where the Younglings in the audience roll their eyes, sigh, and proclaim that no one over 50 can possibly understand blockchain and the valuation of digital ownership rights. Uh-huh... just like no one over 50 could possibly understand why tulip bulbs sold for the equivalent of a million dollars in the 1600s or dot-com companies with no assets and no revenue were valued at billions of dollars at the turn of this century.
Assuming for a minute that the entire NFT thing isn’t some elaborate online scam, how does it work? One way to think about NFTs is baseball cards. There are thousands of 1978 Cleveland Indians Ron Hassey cards out there, but let’s say there is only one signed by the Hassmeister himself. That card has value because it is a one-of-kind item. It is non-fungible because it cannot be exchanged for another exactly like it. Sure, you could find another Ron Hassey card from that year, but it wouldn’t be the same without the autograph. On the other hand, owning that card does not mean you own Ron Hassey. It gives you no legal right to tell Ron what to do or sell Ron’s services. NFTs are a little like that autographed card. They are a digital token that represents a unique digital file, using a platform called blockchain which ensures (in theory) that only one occurrence of that specific order of 1s and 0s exists at any given time. So, if you buy the NFT for a digital file, what you are actually purchasing is the unique digital identifier of a digital file, not the file itself.
How is that worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Beats the heck out of me. NFTs do not convey copyright protection, so it would be difficult to monetize them. While owning the Ron Hassey card does not mean you own Ron Hassey, you do at least own a physical object. You can display it in your office, show it to friends, even charge people to look at it, if you are so inclined. An NFT is nothing more than a line item in a digital ledger. You could print up some sort of a certificate of ownership, I suppose, but really... $761,000? Of course, the value of anything is determined by what just one other person is willing to pay for it, and if that one person is willing to lay down a quarter-million dollars for the right to say they own “Charlie Bit My Finger” at a cocktail party then it is worth exactly that. It may also be the ultimate argument that rich people ought to be paying more in taxes.
The problem with rackets like NFTs is that, like the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble and the tulip bubble, the market will eventually correct toward the real, tangible value of an asset. Houses are made of lumber and brick. Dot-com companies have computers and office buildings and warehouses. Heck, even tulip bulbs have some base, intrinsic value. What is the fundamental value of a string of 1s and 0s, even if that string gives you the right to say you own something you really do not? Zero. It has zero intrinsic value.
Here’s where things get incredibly interesting and unbelievably stupid. Apparently, blockchain, the digital platform underlying NFTs (and cryptocurrencies) has come under scrutiny, not because it is nonsensical, but because—wait for it—it contributes to global climate change. You see, the servers that control the digital signatures of the NFTs run on electricity, and most of that electricity is produced using fossil fuels. It is perhaps worth noting that the environmentalist’s concerns about this are posted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, which, if I am not mistaken, also operate servers. Perhaps those are gerbil-powered.
I can almost hear the Younglings in the audience scoffing that I am talking out of both sides of my mouth; I just put together a unique string of 1,000 words, none of which I own, but that I expect, in this combination, to have value, so why should NFTs be any different. Well, for one, I may not own these 1,000 words, but I do own the order in which they are arranged. That’s the basis of a copyright, something you do not get with an NFT. And perhaps more importantly, essays such as this have been around for thousands of years and their value has been proven over time. Some huckster with an Internet connection thought up NFTs a year ago. Ten years from now, I suspect we’ll all get a laugh about how (fun) gullible people can be.
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