K-Content News

Dialogue this week: Expert's analysis of the background and the future of NFTs

Welcome to Dialogue This Week.
In this corner we invite guests from in and out of Korea to talk about a wide variety of issues ranging from culture and sports, to the latest trends around the world.

An NFT is a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.

Although they've been around since 2014, NFTs gained more fame recently because they are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy and sell digital artwork.
In fact, a staggering $174 million dollars has been spent on NFTs since November 2017.

But are NFTs worth the money? Do they have any risks in terms of value?
To delve deeper into these non-fungible tokens, we are joined by Christos Makridis, Research Professor at the School of Business of Arizona State University; who is also the CTO of multimedia art technology startup Living Opera and Eli Tan, a reporter at CoinDesk - via Skype.

Good morning to you both, thank you for joining us.

First, let's start with Professor Markridis,
1. (MAKRIDIS) NFTs have become a major industry, with over $10 billion US dollars traded in just the third quarter of 2021 alone.
These tokens are a blockchain-based unit of data that allows anyone and everyone to monetize digital content but for starters, let's start with the basics.
Professor, what exactly are these tokens; how did they become such a huge industry?

2. Now let's turn to you (ELI), You've reported on all kinds of interesting "items" making their way to the blockchain.
What drew global attention and made NFTs the new big thing was when, in March of this year, visual artist Beeple sold a piece of tokenized digital artwork for $69 million dollars through Christie's auction house.
But NFTs aren't exactly new What was so special about the Beeple-Christie's trading that led to the NFT phenomenon taking off now?

3. And (ELI), How do you think COVID-19 impacted the popularity of NFTs? Do you think, had it not been for the pandemic, NFTs would have a different significance right now?

4. Now Professor (MAKRIDIS), I'm also quite new to this topic but I did some research and it's my understanding that these NFT marketplaces can be characterized on a spectrum from streamlined to augmented. How are these marketplaces different?

5. Then Professor (MAKRIDIS) How do the creators determine which NFT marketplace to launch on?

6. (ELI) For the NFT newbies who wish to buy items, Eli, how does one choose a marketplace to buy from, and what type of digital wallet can be used?

7. Thank you I'm sure that will be very helpful for people like me. But (ELI), NFT trading is digital and non-fungible. Accordingly, there is the recurring question of volatility. Can you tell us about the risks regarding the value of NFTs?

8. Professor (MAKRIDIS) How about OTHER risks that run with NFTssuch as legal issues of verification or authentication?

9. Now Professor (MAKRIDIS), I heard you also lead a multimedia art technology startup Living Opera Can you walk us through how an artist's work gets "minted" to create an NFT? What does "minting" mean in the blockchain industry?

10. (ELI) Having followed cryptocurrency and digital assets Is this a passing craze, or is this the future of "money"?

11. (MAKRIDIS) What do you think? Is an NFT the big holiday gift of 2021?

Alright, I'm afraid we will have to wrap up it up at this point.
Thank you so much Professor Makridis and Eli for your thoughts on this issue, it was a very interesting and new discussion for me, I hope it was too for our viewers, again we appreciate your time and contribution to the show.

extra: for those who are newbies and want to jump into the market, do you have any tips or precautionary reminders?