26/11/2021 'NFT' is Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2021, beating out 'crypto' and 'cheugy'

"NFT," the abbreviation of "non-fungible token," has been namedWord of the Yearby dictionary publisherCollins, beating "crypto" and "cheugy" to the top spot.
An NFT is "a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain, that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible," according to a blog post from Collins, published Wednesday.
Acting like virtual signatures, NFTs prove the authenticity of an artwork as the blockchain serves as incorruptible proof of ownership, meaning that "original" artworks and their owners can always be identified via the blockchain, even if an image or video is widely replicated.
They also provide scarcity, and as a result thedigital art markethas been booming.
In March, a digital artwork named "Everydays: The First 5000 days"sold for $69.3 millionvia Christie's, making its creator, graphic designer Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, one of the art market's most valuable living artists.
The idea of a digital revolution is also captured in another of the dictionary's candidates for Word of the Year: "crypto," short for "cryptocurrency," digital money that is challenging traditional forms of money, according to Collins.
It also named "metaverse" in its blog post, following Facebook's announcement that it would change its corporate name to Meta.
Other selected words reflect the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with "double-vaxxed" and "hybrid working" making the shortlist.
"Climate anxiety" reflects growing concern about the damage humans are doing to the planet, while "neopronoun" is a way of referring to a person without using their name or traditional markers of gender, such as "he" and "she." Collins gives "xe," "ze" and "ve" as examples of neopronouns.
Rounding out the shortlist are "Regencycore," which is defined as a fashion aesthetic inspired by the Georgian-era clothing seen in the Netflix show "Bridgerton," and "cheugy," which is used to say that something is out of date or uncool.
In 2020, Collins named "lockdown" its Word of the Year, for obvious reasons, and, earlier this month, Oxford Languages made "vax" its pick for 2021.
Defined as "a colloquialism meaning either vaccine or vaccination as a noun and vaccinate as a verb," vax was relatively rare until this year, the company, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, said.
In September, vax appeared more than 72 times more frequently than the year before, said Oxford Languages, which analyzes news content to track changes in the English language.
Arts

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/nft-word-of-the-year-collins-scli-intl-gbr/index.html

Interesting NFTs
Source Code for the WWW
OWNER: Sir Tim Berners-Lee Sir Tim Berners-Lee, b. 1955 Source Code for the WWW 1990-1991 Work includes: Original archive of dated and time-stamped files containing the source code, written between 3 October 1990 and 24 August 1991. These files contain code with approximately 9,555 lines, the contents of which include implementations of the three languages and protocols invented by Sir Tim; HTML (Hypertext Markup Language); HTTP (Hyper Transfer Protocol); and URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers), as well as the original HTML documents that instructed early web users on how to use the application Animated visualization of the code being written (Video, black & white, silent), lasting 30 minutes 25 seconds A Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) representation of the full code (A0 841mm wide by 1189 mm high), created by Sir Tim from the original files using Python, with a graphic representation of his physical signature at lower right A letter written in the README.md file (in “markdown” format) by Sir Tim in June of 2021, reflecting upon the code and his process of creating it Non-fungible Token ERC-721 Minted on June 15, 2021, ed. 1/1 Smart Contract Address: 0x86ade256037d80d6d42df8df96d5be21cd25bd8f
Michael Jordan - Crown Collection
“All you needed was one little match to start that whole fire.”- Michael Jordan. In regards to both the action on the court and everything that happened off of it, Jordan provided a spark that changed the future in so many different ways throughout his tenure in Chicago, and even decades after the fact. And, in the end, he got everything that he wanted when he began his NBA journey: he turned the team and organization as a whole into a respected program, like the dynasties he looked up to as a child. Having steered the Chicago Bulls to an incredible six championship rings in eight years from 1991-1998, scooping up five MVP awards in the process, Jordan is one of just a handful of superstars who have truly transcended their sports. Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s (right) relationship both on and off the pitch was arguably the foundation of the Bulls’ incredible success. Scottie Pippen was present with Jordan for all six championships in eight seasons. Dennis Rodman (left) His relentless and smart play perfectly suited what Jordan and Jackson wanted to do to take the Bulls to greater heights. Although his exploits off the court earned him special fame, Rodman was unquestionably one of the greatest basketball players of his generation and one of the finest defensive players in the history of the game.
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By OthersideDeployer
Really Remote Working Part 2
The second imagined space in the series. Created during the lockdown period whilst being confined to the same place every day, this piece is part of a series of imaginary places that I dreamed of being able to work from.
CryptoKitties
Shalom! I'm Kitty #407123. I'm a professional Foreign Film Director and I love steak. I once dreamed of being a Ventriloquist. Now I can be found braiding people's hair all day. Let's get busy!