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One in four people in America don't know what an NFT is Non-fungible tokens seem to be everywhere, but do you know what they are and how they work? If you answered no, don't worry, you're not alone.

This article was translated from our Spanish edition.

Dmitriy Rybin | Shutterstock

It seems that NFTs are everywhere: at our concerts, at fashion shows, in the private collections of celebrities and even transformed into tacos . And although last year the Collins Dictionary named it the word of the year , the reality is that most people still do not know what they are.

According to a study conducted by Money magazine and Morning Consult , only one in four Americans can accurately explain what an NFT is. Of the 2,210 people surveyed by the publication, 35% had a vague idea of what non-fungible tokens were and only 26% were able to explain precisely what they are and how they work .

WHAT ARE NFT'S AND HOW DO THEY ACQUIRE THEIR VALUE?

NFT stands for Non Fungible Token , that is, crypto assets that represent something unique. A non-expendable good is a good that does not wear out with its use, is not replaceable and is also not substitutable. Imagine a work of art in the physical world, it is a unique piece that cannot be repeated or replaced by another. But the NFT's go further: they can be audio, video, text, images or compressed files . Although it can be complex to understand, the key and the value of NFTs lies in the digital certificates that allow the authenticity of a work to be proven. The sales of these digital assets are recorded in block chains or blockchains that contain information about the ownership of the piece and the history of prices and transactions linked to them. What characterizes the NFT's is that they are unique, indivisible, transferable and it can also be shown that they are scarce. To create an NFT it is necessary to "mint" it, that is, convert it into a digital asset on the blockchain, which can be done in some NFT Marketplace OpenSea , Nifty Gateway and Rarible .

We see NFT's more and more frequently as part of the digital marketing strategies that brands develop. Universal Music , for example, is already developing a virtual music band based on five characters from a famous collection of apes called Bored Ape Yacht Club and consisting of 10,000 unique pieces (some of them owned by celebrities like Madonna , Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Curry).

Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki

Entrepreneur Staff

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