30/11/2021 'You can gain everything and you can lose everything' — here's why experts remain skeptical about the NFT market

Non-fungible tokens — unique digital assets, like artwork andsports trading cards, that are verified and stored using blockchain technology — exploded in popularity in 2021. People create, collect and trade NFTsfor millions of dollars, some with the hopes to profit in the future. But experts are still skeptical that NFTs are a good investment.

The surge in NFTs is still fairly new, but massive amounts of money has already exchanged hands among collectors. Since 2017, for example, NFT collectibles have generated over$6.2 billionin sales while digital art has generated over$1.9 billion, according to NonFungible, which tracks historical sales data of NFTs.

"I think things like artworks and collectibles have become the big commodity of NFTs because they naturally fit into what NFTs are," according to Jon McCormack, a professor of computer science at Monash University. "Digital being copyable, having this extra Certificate of Authenticity is really important to show ownership of that particular thing."

Researchers are concerned that it may be a bad time to enter the market, which has grown too big, too fast under immense hype and speculation. NFT trading volume grew 38,000% year-over-year to hit$10.7 billionduring the third quarter, for example, according to ananalysis by DappRadar, a company that helps people track NFTs and other decentralized assets.

"This may well be the apotheosis, the peak in the paradigm of everything bubbles," said Michael Every, Rabobank's head of financial markets research for Asia-Pacific. "It worries me intensely even if I fully understand the dynamic that drives younger people in particular."

Experts suggest buying an NFT because you want to own it, not because you want to get in on the hype.

"Don't buy it because it's an NFT," said Evan Cohen, co-founder of Vincent. "Buy it because you like the art or buy it because you think the collectible is cool or the community is cool. You want to participate for the asset, not the underlying technology that powers this."

Arts

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/11/29/heres-why-experts-remain-skeptical-about-the-nft-market.html

Interesting NFTs
Bush warbler and roses
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Bush warbler and roses 1834 - Japan
Bloody Monkey
Artist notes: straight up side ya head + VERY valuable RED CIRCLE!! WOW.!!
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.
CryptoKitties
Sup playa! I'm Kitty #442979. I'm often referred to as the Homer Simpson of the group. I like to listen to Frank Sinatra while grooming. Don't judge me. Will you be the marmalade to my garlic butter?
Beautiful Worlds
Welcome to the ‘Beautiful worlds’ where nature and technology have merged into a single entity. These are Ai generated and hand finished visions of solarpunk future in which I would really like our future generations to live and prosper: the future we might have if we took the very “alternative route” which now lies before us: replacing states and corporations which free federations of communities and cooperatives, using decentralist and ecological technologies to create a world beyond economic scarcity and social hierarchy, defined by autonomy, mutual aid, diversity, and inclusiveness. The long-term goals of solarpunk are freedom and well-being for all by adopting and developing such ecological technologies as: solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy rather than oil or gas to generate electricity; a world of decentralized eco-cities, permaculture and vertical farming, free and open-source software, open-source hardware, small-scale fabrication laboratories, micro-manufacturing, 3D-printing, and countless examples of commons-based peer-production online: meeting the maximum amount of needs, in the shortest time, using the minimum possible amount of energy. It’s a world of decentralized and confederated eco-communities, using technology for human-centric and eco-centric ends rather than for accumulating power and profit – mending the metabolic rift between first nature (the natural world) and second nature (human culture) – and where social hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability are considered horror stories from the past “oil age”. Solarpunk desires societies of polycultural ethnic diversity and gender liberation, where each person is able to actualize themselves in societal environment of free experimentation and communal caring; This philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life. Text by Connor Owens. This artwork took me a year to create and for you it will take a year to discover. Master autonomously updates once a day at 12am with one of 366 original artworks. Enjoy!