Gadgets
NFTs: A Deep Dive Into the World of Digital Collectibles
What is an NFT?
An NFT is a digital asset, or a unit of data stored in a digital ledger called a blockchain. NFTs are the digital version of real-world physical assets like a painting, game, music album, collectible sports cards, or even a meme. Anyone can their monetise skill and talent by selling their creations online as an NFT. These assets are bought and sold using cryptocurrency, as they are encoded with similar software, simplifying the transaction process.
While NFTs may seem like a buzzword that appears to have come into the forefront out of nowhere, they have been around since early 2014. However, in recent times NFT buying has surged exponentially with blockchains like Ethereum, Tezos, and more establishing specific standards to ensure that the digitally represented items are genuine and truly unique. Ethereum price in India stood at Rs. 2.45 lakhs as of 2:30pm IST as of August 13.
Why is an NFT unique?
Unlike most digital creations that are available in multiple copies, NFTs are one-of-a-kind with a unique identity code. Much like thumb impressions, no two NFTs are identical. This makes the creation and circulation of fake NFTs difficult. So, they cannot be directly exchanged with one another like cryptocurrencies. When people buy NFTs, they get certificates secured with blockchain technology.
Almost anything can be turned into an NFT —vintage Super Mario Bros cartridges, Andy Murray’s Wimbledon-winning moment, popular memes, World Wide Web source code — take your pick.
What are some of the major NFT sales?
Recently a meme that went viral in 2015 resurfaced and was sold as an NFT for a whopping amount of Rs. 38 lakhs. The funny meme belonged to a Pakistani man who after a fight with his best friend Mudasir decided to announce on social media that their friendship had ended. The friendly fight proved to be rather advantageous and profitable for Muhammad Asif Raza Rana, a resident of Gujranwala. The meme that showcased photoshopped pictures of Rana and Mudasir along with the title “Friendship ended with Mudasir” resurfaced early this year and made global headlines.
A few days ago, yet another outrageous sale of an NFT made waves in the crypto markets. A digital painting of a rock that was a part of a pet project in 2017 was sold at a very high price. The NFT was sold for approximately Rs. 75 lakhs. Ether Rock, as it is called, is simply a digital painting of a large stone that is Grey in colour.
In July, a cartridge of Nintendo’s classic Super Mario 64 set a world record at an auction. It sold for $ 1.56 million (roughly Rs. 11.58 crores).
In June, the first-ever NFT was auctioned for $1.47 million (roughly Rs. 10 crores). The same auction house sold a pixelated digital figure known as a CryptoPunk for a whopping $11.7 million (roughly Rs. 85 crores).
In April, Seth Phillips, popularly known as ‘Dude with Sign,’ whose Instagram account has photos of the him posing with funny, relatable placards about annoying day-to-day problems, decided to turn these images into his very own collection of NFTs. Seth has over 7.6 million followers on Instagram.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet was sold as an NFT and made him richer by $2.9 million (roughly Rs. 20 crore). The tweet made on March 21, 2006, was sold on March 22 this year via auction on a platform called Valuables, owned by the US-based company Cent.
A digital artist by the name of Beeple sold a jpeg file for $69 million (roughly Rs. 512 crores), in a first-of-its-kind auction at Christie’s, a famous auction house.
Why are NFTs considered important?
According to enthusiasts, NFTs hold the key to how one controls ownership of their assets — only one person can own the original and they have a blockchain entry to back them up. Artists can monetise their digital artwork and what’s more, they will even get a royalty if it is sold or changes hands after the initial sale. In the field of music, too, it can be a revolutionary step. For example, American rock band Kings of Leon put out their new album as an NFT and it generated $2 million (roughly Rs. 15 crores) in sales.
Can you buy NFT with cryptocurrency?
Several marketplaces accept Ethereum. Technically, however, anyone selling an NFT can ask for whatever currency they wish to.
What are the downsides of NFTs?
It should be noted that NFTs end up exhausting a lot of electricity as they use the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies that generate greenhouse gas emissions.
Another downside is that with so many people obsessing over NFTs, good bargains may not come your way easily as a buyer and you might end up overpaying. From a seller’s point of view, when the hype fades and NFTs turn into just another digital collectible, profits will be harder to come by since everyone else in the market will be trying to make profits too.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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