Imagine you have a beautiful drawing. If it’s on paper, there’s only one original. You can make copies, but everyone knows the paper one is “the real deal.”
Now, imagine that drawing is digital – on a computer screen. In the past, if you made a fantastic digital drawing, anyone could just save a copy to their own computer. It was hard to say which one was the original. It was like every copy was just as “real” as the next. How do you sell “the original” when there isn’t a unique physical thing?
That’s where an NFT comes in. An NFT is like a unique digital certificate of authenticity for that specific digital drawing (or song, or video clip). It’s a special code stored on a giant, public, digital record book called a blockchain. This record book is unchangeable and viewable by everyone.
So, the NFT doesn’t stop people from copying the digital drawing itself – you can still save it or share it. But what the NFT does is prove you own the official, certified “original” digital version. It’s like having the deed to a digital piece of art. Everyone can see the house, but only you have the deed proving it’s yours.
For artists, it’s a way to actually sell unique digital creations and get credit for them, almost like selling a one-of-a-kind physical artwork. For people who buy them, it’s a new way to collect digital art, support artists, and own a unique piece of internet culture.
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