NFTs and bitcoin, probably some of the worst digital things people have thought of today.

You might be wondering, “What is an NFT anyway?”

NFT stands for “non-fungible token.” Non-fungible means that it can’t be replaced, something of its kind. For example, bitcoin IS fungible. You can trade one for another, it’s kind of like a trading card. However, non-fungible stuff like NFTs can’t be traded normally. It’s like trading a Squirtle with some card from Digimon.

NFTs are a part of the big Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin, though it’s a blockchain that supports NFTs along with excess information that can be stored.

So what are NFTs exactly? NFTs can be anything, such as music, drawings. . . Mostly drawings. The big craze about NFTs now is about selling art and claiming it as your own by buying it with cryptocurrency. But the thing is, you don’t even fully own it. The owner of said art STILL has ownership despite selling it to YOU, the supposed new owner of this NFT.

That’s where things get awkward. Not to mention, another person can easily download or screenshot that same exact file for free.

It gets worse from here. According to the article The climate controversy swirling around NFTS, “Individual pieces of crypto art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are at least partially responsible for the millions of tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions generated by the cryptocurrencies used to buy and sell them” (Calma, 2021).

Buying and selling these pieces of art is most definitely helping the world slowly burn.

Instead of wasting precious little pieces of money on these ugly-looking art pieces, people could commission artists that need that money. It’s infinitely better because they can use that money to live, and it doesn’t hurt the earth at all! Plus you can ask to customize every single detail of it, instead of slapping some copy-paste-looking asset on a flea-infested monkey.

NFTs and Bitcoin, in general, are such a big mess, and in my opinion, people should just drop it completely. Buying gross pieces of these things are leaving big carbon footprints which isn’t great. People should  switch from buying screenshot-able NFTs to commissioning friendly, hardworking artists. REAL artists.