#49: ?? buy this edition

G'day team

This week I took a dive into the crazy crypto world of "non-fungible tokens".

I'm taking you down with me: Buy this edition of my newsletter!

This is mind bending stuff... so this week's edition is dedicated just to this.

ownership = the right to sell

What does it mean to "own" something digital. How on earth can you "own" a highlight from a basketball game? Or Jack Dorsey's first tweet? Or a digital image that anyone can download, upload or see on Instagram for free, like this one:

These things, believe it or not, are changing hands for millions of dollars. The one above, for example, cost its owner $6.6 million.

Here's the tldr:

• Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) use the blockchain to specify "ownership" of digital assets
• Digital assets include images, video, music tracks
• Digital assets by their very nature are infinitely replicable without loss of quality
• But if I can prove I "own" the asset, I can sell it
• The blockchain makes it possible to prove that I'm the owner
• There's a whole new market where people can buy and sell stuff they couldn't before
• Crazy uber-capitalist behaviour

Move bits not atoms

The first time I remember hearing about the internet was in 1994 in a big ballroom in San Francisco where Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Lab, was giving a keynote presentation to an audience of 3,000 (it was a big ballroom).

It remains in my memory for two reasons:

1) Here comes everyone: At one point, he turned his back on the room and told us all to start clapping, and then to clap in time with each other. Without any conducting, and within about 30 seconds, from the chaos of applause grew the order of a beat:

It was a metaphor for the power of the flock, or the crowd, or whatever, that we could all work together without any hierarchical leadership, or something. I've always wanted to try it out. So far noone has invited me to address a room of 3,000. There's still time.

2) Move bits not atoms: This was the theme of the presentation, and the theme of Negroponte's 1995 book Being Digital. The point was that, in the the digital world we didn't need to ship physical goods like records or film reels to listen to music or watch movies, we just needed to move the bits (and bytes), and that this meant the new interwebs would change everything. That has turned out, as we now know, to be very true.

Being able to replicate things at the click of a button has had huge ramifications for many industries:

• The music industry has been gutted - we no longer need to buy waxy records or CDs in crystal cases, people can swap music files for free and the music industry executives and A&R men who lived high off the hog on the talent of the musicians and the profits from the record industy supply chain are now an endangered species.
• Movies, books, newspapers, photography and art, these things and others have been transferred into the world of bits from the world of atoms and that has turned the economics of their industries upside down and transformed our world.

Bits and bytes

One of the beautiful things about digital assets is that they are infinitely replicable, with no loss of quality. If I download a stream of a music single, I'm just downloading 1s and 0s in the form of, I don't know, electrons or whatever. And my download doesn't stop you from doing the same and having just as good an experience. But it does cause problems with ownership. It is just not as easy to clip the ticket on a digital stream as it is on a physical CD you have to buy from a bricks and mortar store.

The blockchain changes this. The creator of a digital asset can establish a token uniquely identified with the asset. So I can own the only token associated with a particular song, or image or tweet, or anything that can be digitised, for instance, rock band Kings of Leon created NFTs for tickets to a concert to be held in the future and other special perks.

The right and techical ability to transfer this token to another holder represents "ownership". And all this happens on the digital ledger called the blockchain.

My head hurts.

How to create an NFT

So I thought I'd make my head hurt even more and create an NFT so that you, readers, can experience the joy of digital ownership.

These are the steps I took:

1. Google: "how to create an NFT"
2. Read and follow instructions in top result. This involves around 45 minutes of clicking obscure links and giving your credit card to websites that are likely built by a couple of guys in a basement in Manila or Belgrade. Phone a friend who does crypto.

Listing the item for auction cost me about $75 in "gas" fees which are, apparently, distributed to the ethereum miners arount the world who convert computer power into greenhouse gases in pursuit of digital wealth.

I am auctioning off none other than the ownership rights to this edition #49 of the Content-ed newsletter.

Click here to play.

Do you think you'll be able to sell the ownership of this newsletter for more in the future than you pay for it today? I mean, what have you got to lose?

_______________________________

That's it from me for this special exclusively for sale issue #49

Share me with your networks if you think I give great value for the subscription fee!

Until next time

Mike