NFT’s or Non-Fungible Tokens, are one of the latest investment and internet trends, but recently, NFT’s have been receiving a lot of criticism. But why are NFT’s are getting so much hate, and are they a stupid idea?
If you don’t know what an NFT is, think of owning a NFT as like owning a piece of artwork. The only difference is that the artwork that you own is digital rather than a physical object. In practice, you technically own the artwork, but due to it being digital, it is exactly the same as all the other copies of the same artwork which have been circulated online. NFT’s practically take everything special about owning a physical one-of-a-kind piece of art and throw it out the window. All an NFT gives you, however, is bragging rights about how you supposedly own a “unique” piece of art that’s worth a lot of money. Sometimes NFT’s don’t even have to be a piece of art, some of them are just a . But at the point of turning a post on a social media platform into supposed art, you may as well take anything from the internet and make it an NFT. Adding everything up, NFT’s seem to be just another pointless internet trend being pushed by groups like Larvalabs and Yugalabs, which are two of the largest NFT creators, who are looking to make a quick buck.
At first glance, NFT’s may seem quite harmless, but there is an underlying problem to this entire NFT thing, and that is its carbon footprint. NFT’s have a massive carbon footprint, mainly due to their close connection with cryptocurrency. If you are unaware of what cryptocurrency is, which you should considering your reading an article about NFTs, cryptocurrencies are a form of digital currency. Anyways, if you don’t know already, most NFT’s are bought and sold with the Ethereum Cryptocurrency, which has a massive carbon footprint. Ethereum alone has a carbon footprint of 58.8 Mt of CO2, which is comparable to the country of Libya, and let’s not even get started on Bitcoin.
In a time when we should be reducing our carbon output as much as possible, we are instead emitting more carbon because people want to invest in a digital ‘artwork.’ Though Ethereum has made plans to reduce its carbon footprint by switching its authentication system from a Regardless, people should be environmentally conscious enough to know they should not participate in the selling or buying of NFTs due to their environmental impact. Despite our greater understanding of climate change in the 21 century, people still find ways to partake in such mind numbingly stupid ideas such as NFT’s. Though we have plenty of intelligent individuals who are well aware of the problems of NFT’s, at the end of the day, the smartest people will be able to monetize absolutely every idea, no matter how dumb it sounds.
Feature Photo Curtesy of Yugalabs.
