NFTs: Just Hype?
In just a few months, NFTs entered mainstream media by force to become one of the hottest topics of 2021. Elon Musk sang a song and minted it. Snoop Dogg released "A Journey with the Dogg", an NFT collection with art inspired by his childhood memories and an original song. The CEO of Twitter sold his first tweet for 2.9 million dollars. But just how concrete are these digital claims of ownership that seem to attract so much attention and wealth?
One of the biggest and most controversial debates in art is the status of art reproductions. What gives the original work value if there are multiple reproductions of it being enjoyed by people everywhere? Physical artworks claim value not only through their perceived scarcity, but also the experience within which they are presented. What about digital artworks? With graphic design becoming a rich form of art, digital art is becoming more in demand.
However, it is ridiculously easy to reproduce a digital artwork for cheap, if not free. Copy and Paste are two of the most utilized functions of the computer in the world, and in a digital world an artist has no real claim to their art. This is where NFTs come in. NFTs turn art into unique pieces of code that allow them to be distinguished as the originals in a haystack of identical copies.
There is no real authority determining the authenticity of NFTs. Cryptocurrency is still an abstract idea awaiting adoption as an actual financial system. At any point, NFTs could lose their legitimacy if people begin to stop believing in the practical application of them.
May 11th, 2021
Shiba Inu: Buy? Don't Buy?
The Shiba Inu coin is popping off! You can already see the posts: I put in 500 and made 6 million! BUY SHIB NOW! TO THE MOON! At this moment, SHIB is pretty worthless at 0.000019 cents, but in the past few weeks it has gone up thousands of percents. It's exciting to see your investments grow fast and high, but isn't it a little bit too late to get on the bandwagon now?
Shiba Inu boasts a self-sustaining, community run ecosystem with soon-to-be released components like SHIBASWAP that promise users a truly decentralized experience. It sounds legit, looks legit (even as a memecoin), and even trades like a legit coin (with those gas fees!!!). Sadly, it will never reach the heights of Bitcoin as it might not even reach the threshold of 1 cent.
Most people do not understand that market cap is the best indicator of the potential a cryptocoin may have. This is calculated by multiplying the price of the coin by the circulating supply, and the result suggests how much money is actually invested into the coin. For example, Bitcoin has a high price but relatively low market price due to its scarcity. On the other hand, compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum has a low price but high market cap, due to its potentially infinite supply. SHIB, with almost 400 trillion coins in circulation, cannot even reach these prices since its market cap at 1 cent would be equal to Bitcoin's market cap now.
Fortunately, with future updates, there is a lot of potential in the Shiba Inu Coin. Especially at the price it is now, there is profit to be made. But as always, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
May 13th, 2021
