The Million Dollar Question Is Why NFTs Are Important. The Answer? Ownership It isn't about new fads or fancy art works, but simply about cementing ownership patterns for creators.

If a poll were taken within the animal kingdom on their views regarding NFTs (non-fungible tokens), chimpanzees would vote unanimously in their favour. Thanks to the phenomenon of NFTs, and in particular due to website The Bored Ape Yacht Club, which created ape NFTs, we saw the primate in several avatars, right from futuristic fashion to normal day to day ones and more.

But quirky art work aside, scepticism towards aspects of the web 3 world such as the metaverse and crytpto currency, especially due to the crypto currency crash also extends to the land of NFTs. So what really is the utility of NFTs? Is it just hype which shall die out in the near future?

It all depends on how one looks at it. And during a recent panel discussion at Entrepreneur India's Web 3 Summit in Bangalore, one clear reason emerged from all the noise around NFTs. Before delving into what experts and leaders from the space said about the same, we need to know what exactly an NFT is- it is a unique digital identifier that one cannot copy and is recorded in a blockchain, which is for certifying ownership. Asif Kamal, Founder, Artfi further clarified this definition in his opening statement when he said that NFTs are not artwork, as is popularly believed. It is a tool which records the creation and ownership of an asset, which in turn could be an artwork.

SEE FULL PANEL DISCUSSION VIDEO HERE

Artur Kachur, Co-founder and CEO of 3*4 and Prayag Singh, Co-founder, SOCLLY went on to explain how ownership is not clearly defined in the current scenario and is definitely not something which sides with the creator. "Let's say you go to Google and like a photo, eventually downloading it. Then anyone can use it easily, but with NFTs, whoever the owner of that image is controls rights to its usage," Kachur said. Singh followed that up with an instance from social media. "It's all about ownership. For example you have a huge Twitter following, but ownership for that platform is centralized. If they block your account you will either have to fight with them or go to court. However, in the web 3 world, no one can block your account. Even if someone bans your account, you can move to another client," he explained.

Not only ownership, the web 3 space would allow entrepreneurs to experiment with different types of business models according to Sagar Pratap Joisar, the founder of Xenon Labs, with him pointing out how tokenization would open up avenues for creators to come up with different models which helps everyone grow together.

With the clear purpose of NFTs identified, Jupiter Meta's CEO, Manasa Rajan shed light on another important aspect- the definition of creators. "A creator is someone who creates something unique and of value, and I want to expand the definition of the term and not just limit it to artists, musicians, content creators and the like. I want to expand it to handloom weavers, sustainability warriors, and we need to also start valuing such innovations as IP in the true sense or also give the creator an ability to monetize it. That is where blockchain technology comes in," she said, addressing the crowd.

What one realized post the discussion, which wasn't clear before was what the importance of NFTs are. It isn't about new fads or fancy art works, but simply about cementing ownership patterns for creators, so that decentralization becomes the norm, and creators have increased rights over their own creations and hence, more control.

The author can be reached at bkabir@entrepreneurindia.com and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari