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Illustration of a non-fungible token generated by a smart contract (a program designed to automatically execute contract terms)

A non-fungible token ( NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain, and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody, and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible.

Proponents claim that NFTs provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, but the legal rights conveyed by an NFT can be uncertain. The ownership of an NFT as defined by the blockchain has no inherent legal meaning and does not necessarily grant copyright, intellectual property rights, or other legal rights over its associated digital file. An NFT does not restrict the sharing or copying of its associated digital file and does not prevent the creation of NFTs that reference identical files.

The trading of NFTs in 2021 increased to $17 billion over just $82 million in the previous year. NFTs have been used as speculative investments and they have drawn criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with some types of blockchain, as well as their use in art scams. The NFT market has also been compared to an economic bubble or a Ponzi scheme. During their peak, the three biggest NFT platforms were Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano. In 2022, the NFT market collapsed; a May 2022 estimate was that the number of sales was down over 90% compared to 2021. By September 2023, one report claimed that over 95% of NFT collections had zero monetary value.

Characteristics

An NFT is a data file, stored on a type of digital ledger called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular asset - digital or physical - such as an image, art, music, or recording of a sports event. It may confer licensing rights to use the asset for a specified purpose. An NFT (and, if applicable, the associated license to use, copy, or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets. However, the extralegal nature of NFT trading usually results in an informal exchange of ownership over the asset that has no legal basis for enforcement, and so often confers little more than use as a status symbol.

NFTs function like cryptographic tokens, but unlike cryptocurrencies, NFTs are not usually mutually interchangeable, so they are not fungible. A non-fungible token contains data links, for example which point to details about where the associated art is stored, that can be affected by link rot.

A diagram showing the right to own a non-fungible token and linked file. In most cases, it is heavily dependent on the token's smart contract.

An NFT solely represents a proof of ownership of a blockchain record and does not necessarily imply that the owner possesses intellectual property rights to the digital asset the NFT purports to represent. Someone may sell an NFT that represents their work, but the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright to that work, and the seller may not be prohibited from creating additional NFT copies of the same work. According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet, "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever the art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred."

Certain NFT projects, such as Bored Apes, explicitly assign intellectual property rights of individual images to their respective owners. The NFT collection CryptoPunks was a project that initially prohibited owners of its NFTs from using the associated digital artwork for commercial use, but later allowed such use upon acquisition by the collection's parent company.

The first known "NFT", Quantum, was created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash in May 2014. It consists of a video clip made by McCoy's wife, Jennifer. McCoy registered the video on the Namecoin blockchain and sold it to Dash for $4, during a live presentation for the Seven on Seven conferences at the New Museum in New York City. McCoy and Dash referred to the technology as "monetized graphics". This explicitly linked a non-fungible, tradable blockchain marker to a work of art, via on-chain metadata (enabled by Namecoin).

In October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, was launched and demonstrated at DEVCON 1 in London, Ethereum's first developer conference, three months after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain. Most of Etheria's 457 purchasable and tradable hexagonal tiles went unsold for more than five years until March 13, 2021, when renewed interest in NFTs sparked a buying frenzy. Within 24 hours, all tiles of the current version and a prior version, each hardcoded to 1 ETH ( US$0.43 at the time of launch), were sold for a total of US$ 1.4 million.

The term "NFT" only achieved wider usage with the ERC-721 standard, first proposed in 2017 via the Ethereum GitHub, following the launch of various NFT projects that year. The standard coincided with the launch of several NFT projects, including Curio Cards, CryptoPunks (a project to trade unique cartoon characters, released by the American studio Larva Labs on the Ethereum blockchain), and rare Pepe trading cards.

The 2017 online game CryptoKitties was made profitable by selling tradable cat NFTs, and its success brought public attention to NFTs.

The NFT market experienced rapid growth during 2020, with its value tripling to US$250 million. In the first three months of 2021, more than US$ 200 million were spent on NFTs.

In the early months of 2021, interest in NFTs increased after a number of high-profile sales and art auctions.

In May 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that the NFT market was "collapsing". Daily sales of NFT tokens had declined 92% from September 2021, and the number of active wallets in the NFT market fell 88% from November 2021. While rising interest rates had impacted risky bets across the financial markets, the Journal said "NFTs are among the most speculative."

A September 2023 report from cryptocurrency gambling website dappGambl claimed 95% of NFTs had fallen to zero monetary value.

Commonly associated files

NFTs have been used to exchange digital tokens that link to a digital file asset. Ownership of an NFT is often associated with a license to use such a linked digital asset but generally does not confer the copyright to the buyer. Some agreements only grant a license for personal, non-commercial use, while other licenses also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset. This kind of decentralized intellectual copyright poses an alternative to established forms of safeguarding copyright controlled by state institutions and middlemen within the respective industry.

Digital art

Digital art is a common use case for NFTs. High-profile auctions of NFTs linked to digital art have received considerable public attention; the first such major house auction took place at Christie's in 2021. The work entitled Merge by artist Pak was the most expensive NFT, with an auction price of US$91.8 million and Everydays: the First 5000 Days, by artist Mike Winkelmann (known professionally as Beeple) the second most expensive at US$ 69.3 million in 2021.

Some digital art NFTs, like these pixel art characters, are examples of generative art.

Some NFT collections, including Bored Apes, EtherRocks, and CryptoPunks are examples of generative art, where many different images are created by assembling a selection of simple picture components in different combinations.

In March 2021, the blockchain company Injective Protocol bought a $95,000 original screen print entitled Morons (White) from English graffiti artist Banksy, and filmed somebody burning it with a cigarette lighter. They uploaded (known as "minting" in the NFT scene) and sold the video as an NFT. The person who destroyed the artwork, who called themselves "Burnt Banksy", described the act as a way to transfer a physical work of art to the NFT space.

American curator and art historian Tina Rivers Ryan, who specializes in digital works, said that art museums are widely not convinced that NFTs have "lasting cultural relevance." Ryan compares NFTs to the net art fad before the dot-com bubble. In July 2022, after the controversial sale of Michelangelo's in Italy, the sale of NFT reproductions of famous artworks was prohibited in Italy. Given the complexity and lack of regulation of the matter, the Ministry of Culture of Italy temporarily requested that its institutions refrain from signing contracts involving NFTs.

No centralized means of authentication exists to prevent stolen and counterfeit digital works from being sold as NFTs, although auction houses like Sotheby's, Christie's, and various museums and galleries worldwide started collaborations and partnerships with digital artists such as Refik Anadol, Dangiuz and Sarah Zucker.

NFTs associated with digital artworks could be sold and bought via NFT platforms. OpenSea, launched in 2017, was one of the first marketplaces to host various types of NFTs. In July 2019, the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs, the creator of CryptoKitties, started a joint venture NBA Top Shot for basketball fans that let users buy NFTs of historic moments in basketball. In 2020, Rarible was found, allowing multiple assets. In 2021, Rarible and Adobe formed a partnership to simplify the verification and security of metadata for digital content, including NFTs. In 2021, a cryptocurrency exchange Binance, launched its NFT marketplace. In 2022, eToro Art by eToro was founded, focusing on supporting NFT collections and emerging creators.

Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses showcase artworks associated with the respective NFTs both in virtual galleries and physical screens, monitors, and TVs.

Mars House, an architectural NFT created in May 2020 by artist Krista Kim, sold in 2021 for 288 Ether (ETH) - at that time equivalent to US$524,558.

NFTs can represent in-game assets. Some commentators describe these as being controlled "by the user" instead of the game developer if they can be traded on third-party marketplaces without permission from the game developer. Their reception from game developers, though, has been generally mixed, with some like Ubisoft embracing the technology but Valve and Microsoft formally prohibiting them.

CryptoKitties was an early successful blockchain online game in which players adopt and trade virtual cats. The monetization of NFTs within the game raised a $12.5 million investment, with some kitties selling for over $100,000 each. Following its success, CryptoKitties was added to the ERC-721 standard, which was created in January 2018 (and finalized in June).

In October 2021, Valve Corporation banned applications from their Steam platform if those applications use blockchain technology or NFTs to exchange value or game artifacts.

In December 2021, Ubisoft announced Ubisoft Quartz, "an NFT initiative which allows people to buy artificially scarce digital items using cryptocurrency". The announcement was heavily criticized by audiences, with the Quartz announcement video attaining a dislike ratio of 96% on YouTube. Ubisoft subsequently unlisted the video from YouTube. The announcement was also criticized internally by Ubisoft developers. The Game Developers Conference's 2022 annual report stated that 70 percent of developers surveyed said their studios had no interest in integrating NFTs or cryptocurrency into their games.

Some luxury brands minted NFTs for online video game cosmetics. In November 2021, investment firm Morgan Stanley published a note claiming that this could become a US$56 billion market by 2030.

In July 2022, Mojang Studios announced that NFTs would not be permitted in , saying that they went against the game's "values of creative inclusion and playing together".

Music and film

NFTs have been proposed for use within the film-industry as a way to tokenize movie-scenes and sell them as collectibles in the form of NFTs. Artists involved in the entertainment-industry can seek royalties through NFTs. So far, NFTs have often been used in both the music- as well as the film-industry.

In May 2018, 20th Century Fox partnered with Atom Tickets and released limited-edition digital posters to promote the film. They were available from OpenSea and the GFT exchange.

In March 2021 Adam Benzine's 2015 documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah became the first motion picture and documentary film to be auctioned as an NFT.

Other examples of NFTs being used in the film-industry include a collection of NFT-artworks for Godzilla vs. Kong, the release of both Kevin Smith's horror-movie KillRoy Was Here , and the 2021 film Zero Contact as NFTs in 2021.

In April 2021, an NFT was released for the score of the movie , composed by Gregg Leonard.

In November 2021, film director Quentin Tarantino released seven NFTs based on uncut scenes of Pulp Fiction. Miramax subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming that their film rights were violated and that the original 1993 contract with Tarantino gave them the right to mint NFTs in relation to Pulp Fiction.

In August 2022 Muse released album Will of the People as 1,000 NFTs and it became the first album for which NFT sales would qualify for the UK and Australian charts.

By February 2021 NFTs accounted for US$25 million of revenue generated through the sale of artwork and songs as NFTs. On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3LAU sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of US$11.7 million to commemorate the three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album. On March 3, 2021, an NFT was made to promote the Kings of Leon album When You See Yourself. Other musicians who have used NFTs include American rapper Lil Pump, Grimes, visual artist Shepard Fairey in collaboration with record producer Mike Dean, and rapper Eminem.

A paper presented at the 40th International Conference on Information Systems in Munich in 2019 suggested using NFTs as tickets for different types of events. This would enable organizers of the respective events or artists performing there to receive royalties on the resale of each ticket.

Other associated files

A number of internet memes have been associated with NFTs, which were minted and sold by their creators or by their subjects. Examples include Doge, an image of a Shiba Inu dog, as well as Charlie Bit My Finger, Nyan Cat and Disaster Girl.

Some virtual worlds, often marketed as metaverses, have incorporated NFTs as a means of trading virtual items and virtual real estate.

Some pornographic works have been sold as NFTs, though hostility from NFT marketplaces towards pornographic material has presented significant drawbacks for creators. By using NFTs people engaged in this area of the entertainment-industry are able to publish their works without third-party platforms being able to delete them.

The first credited political protest NFT ("Destruction of Nazi Monument Symbolizing Contemporary Lithuania") was a video filmed by Professor Stanislovas Tomas on April 8, 2019, and minted on March 29, 2021. In the video, Tomas uses a sledgehammer to destroy a state-sponsored Lithuanian plaque located on the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences honoring Nazi war criminal Jonas Noreika.

In 2020, CryptoKitties developer Dapper Labs released the NBA TopShot project, which allowed the purchase of NFTs linked to basketball highlights. The project was built on top of the Flow blockchain.

In March 2021 an NFT of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's first-ever tweet sold for $2.9 million. The same NFT was listed for sale in 2022 at $48 million, but only achieved a top bid of $280.

On December 15, 2022, Donald Trump, former president of the United States, announced a line of NFTs featuring images of himself for $99 each. It was reported that he made between $100,001 and $1 million from the scheme.

Use cases of NFTs in science and medicine

NFTs have been proposed for purposes related to scientific and medical purposes. Suggestions include turning patient data into NFTs, tracking supply chains and minting patents as NFTs.

The monetary aspect of the sale of NFTs has been used by academic institutions to finance research projects.

George M. Church sold NFTs of an "artistic representation" of his genome and likeness in 2022.

The University of California, Berkeley announced in May 2021 its intention to auction NFTs of two patents of inventions for which the creators had received a Nobel Prize: the patents for CRISPR gene editing and cancer immunotherapy. The university would, however, retain ownership of the patents.[121][122] 85% of funds gathered through the sale of the collection were to be used to finance research.[123][124] The collection included handwritten notices and faxes by James Allison and was named The Fourth Pillar. It sold in June 2022 for 22 Ether, about US$54,000 at the time.[125]

George Church, a US geneticist, announced his intention to sell his DNA via NFTs and use the profits to finance research conducted by Nebula Genomics. In June 2022, 20 NFTs with his likeness were published instead of the originally planned NFTs of his DNA due to the market conditions at the time.[117] Despite mixed reactions, the project is considered to be part of an effort to use the genetic data of 15,000 individuals to support genetic research. By using NFTs the project wants to ensure that the users submitting their genetic data are able to receive direct payment for their contributions.[117][126] Several other companies have been involved in similar and often criticized efforts to use blockchain-based genetic data in order to guarantee users more control over their data and enable them to receive direct financial compensation whenever their data is being sold.[125]

Molecule Protocol, a project based in Switzerland, is trying to use NFTs to digitize the intellectual copyright of individual scientists and research teams to finance research.[127] The project's whitepaper explains the aim is to represent the copyright of scientific papers as NFTs and enable their trade between researchers and investors on a future marketplace.[128] The project was able to raise US$12 million in seed money in July 2022.[127] A similar approach has been announced by RMDS Lab.[129]

Speculation

NFTs representing digital collectables and artworks are a speculative asset. The NFT buying surge was called an economic bubble by experts, who also compared it to the Dot-com bubble. In March 2021 Mike Winkelmann called NFTs an "irrational exuberance bubble". By mid-April 2021, demand subsided, causing prices to fall significantly. Financial theorist William J. Bernstein compared the NFT market to 17th-century tulip mania, saying any speculative bubble requires a technological advance for people to "get excited about", with part of that enthusiasm coming from the extreme predictions being made about the product. For regulatory policymakers, NFTs have exacerbated challenges such as speculation, fraud, and high volatility.

Money laundering

NFTs, as with other blockchain securities and with traditional art sales, can potentially be used for money laundering. NFTs can be used for wash trading by creating several wallets for one individual, generating several fictitious sales and consequently selling the respective NFT to a third party. According to a report by Chainalysis these types of wash trades are becoming popular among money launderers because of the largely anonymous nature of transactions on NFT marketplaces. Looksrare, created in early 2022, came to be known for the large sums generated through the sale of NFTs in its earliest days, amounting to US$400,000,000 a day. These large sums were generated in large part through wash trading. The Royal United Services Institute said that any risks in relation to money laundering through NFTs could be mitigated through the use of " KYC best practices, strong cyber security measures and a stolen art registry (...) without restricting the growth of this new market".

Auction platforms for NFTs may face regulatory pressure to comply with anti-money laundering legislation. Gou Wenjun, the director of a monitoring centre for the People's Bank of China, said that NFTs could "easily become money-laundering tools". He pointed to unlawful exploitation of cryptographic technologies and said that illicit actors often presented themselves as innovators in financial technology.

A 2022 study from the United States Treasury assessed that there was "some evidence of money laundering risk in the high-value art market", including through "the emerging digital art market, such as the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)". The study considered how NFT transactions may be a simpler option for laundering money through art by avoiding the transportation or insurance complications in trading physical art. Several NFT exchanges were labeled as virtual asset service providers that may be subject to Financial Crimes Enforcement Network regulations. In March 2022, two people were charged for the execution of a million-dollar NFT scheme through wire fraud.

The European Commission announced in July 2022 that it was planning to draw up regulations to combat money laundering by 2024.

In 2019, Nike patented a system called CryptoKicks that would use NFTs to verify the authenticity of its physical products and would give a virtual version of the shoe to the customer.

Certain NFT releases have also added exclusivity to the NFT utility including access to private online clubs.

Standards in blockchains

Several blockchains have added support for NFTs since Ethereum created its ERC-721 standard.

ERC-721 is an "inheritable" smart contract standard, which means that developers can create contracts by copying from a reference implementation. ERC-721 provides core methods that allow tracking the owner of a unique identifier, as well as a way for the owner to transfer the asset to others. Another standard, ERC-1155, offers "semi-fungibility" whereby a token represents a class of interchangeable assets.

Issues and criticisms

As an image on the web, the digital art linked to a non-fungible token may be right-clicked and saved like any other picture file.

Because the contents of NFTs are publicly accessible, anybody can easily copy a file referenced by an NFT. Furthermore, the ownership of an NFT on the blockchain does not inherently convey legally enforceable intellectual property rights to the file.

It has become well known that an NFT image can be copied or saved from a web browser by using a right click menu to download the referenced image. NFT supporters disparage this duplication of NFT artwork as a "right-clicker mentality". One collector quoted by compared the value of a purchased NFT (in contrast to an unpurchased copy of the underlying asset) to that of a status symbol "to show off that they can afford to pay that much".

The "right-clicker mentality" phrase spread virally after its introduction, particularly among those who were critical of the NFT marketplace and who appropriated the term to flaunt their ability to capture digital art backed by NFT with ease. This criticism was promoted by Australian programmer Geoffrey Huntley who created "The NFT Bay", modeled after The Pirate Bay. The NFT Bay advertised a torrent file purported to contain 19 terabytes of digital art NFT images. Huntley compared his work to an art project from Pauline Pantsdown and hoped the site would help educate users on what NFTs are and are not.

Storage off-chain

NFTs that represent digital art generally do not store the associated artwork file on the blockchain due to the large size of such a file, and the limited processing speed of blockchains. Such a token functions like a certificate of ownership, with a web address that points to the piece of art in question; this however makes the art itself vulnerable to link rot.

Environmental concerns

NFT purchases and sales are enabled by the high energy usage, and consequent greenhouse gas emissions, associated with blockchain transactions. Though all forms of Ethereum transactions have an impact on the environment, the direct impact of the transaction is also dependent upon the size of the Ethereum transaction. The proof-of-work protocol required to regulate and verify blockchain transactions on networks such as Ethereum consumes a large amount of electricity. To estimate the carbon footprint of a given NFT transaction requires a variety of assumptions or estimations about the manner in which that transaction is set up on the blockchain, the economic behavior of blockchain miners (and the energy demands of their mining equipment), and the amount of renewable energy being used on these networks. There are also conceptual questions, such as whether the carbon footprint estimate for an NFT purchase should incorporate some portion of the ongoing energy demand of the underlying network, or just the marginal impact of that particular purchase. An analogy might be the carbon footprint associated with an additional passenger on a given airline flight.

Some NFT technologies use validation protocols, such as proof of stake, that use much less energy per validation cycle. Other approaches to reducing electricity include the use of off-chain transactions as part of minting an NFT. A number of NFT art sites hope to address these concerns, and some are moving to technologies and protocols with lower associated footprints. Others now allow the option of buying carbon offsets when making NFT purchases, although the environmental benefits of this have been questioned. In some instances, NFT artists have decided against selling some of their own work to limit carbon emission contributions.

Artist and buyer fees

Sales platforms charge artists and buyers fees for minting, listing, claiming, and secondary sales. Analysis of NFT markets in March 2021, in the immediate aftermath of Beeple's "Everydays: the First 5000 Days" selling for US$69.3 million, found that most NFT artworks were selling for less than US$200, with a third selling for less than US$ 100. Those selling NFTs below $100 were paying platform fees between 72.5% and 157.5% of that amount. On average the fees make up 100.5% of the price, meaning that such artists were on average paying more money in fees than they were making in sales.

Plagiarism and fraud

There have been cases of artists and creators having their work sold by others as an NFT without permission. After the artist Qing Han died in 2020, her identity was assumed by a fraudster and a number of her works became available for purchase as NFTs. Similarly, a seller posing as Banksy succeeded in selling an NFT supposedly made by the artist for $336,000 in 2021; the seller refunded the money after the case drew media attention. In 2022, it was discovered that as part of their NFT marketing campaign, an NFT company that voice actor Troy Baker announced his partnership with had plagiarized voice lines generated from 15.ai, a free AI text-to-speech project.

The anonymity associated with NFTs and the ease with which they can be forged make it difficult to pursue legal action against NFT plagiarists.

In February 2023, artist Mason Rothschild was ordered to pay $133,000 in damages to Hermès by a New York court, after a jury sided with the copyright holder, for his 2021 digital depictions of the brand's Birkin handbag.

Some NFT marketplaces responded to cases of plagiarism by creating "takedown teams" to respond to artist complaints. The NFT marketplace OpenSea has rules against plagiarism and deepfakes (non-consensual intimate imagery). Some artists criticized OpenSea's efforts, saying they are slow to respond to takedown requests and that artists are subject to support scams from users who claim to be representatives of the platform. Others argue that there is no market incentive for NFT marketplaces to crack down on plagiarism.

A process known as "sleepminting" allows a fraudster to mint an NFT in an artist's wallet and transfer it back to their own account without the artist becoming aware. This allowed a white hat hacker to mint a fraudulent NFT that had seemingly originated from the wallet of the artist Beeple.

Plagiarism concerns led the art website DeviantArt to create an algorithm that compares user art posted on the DeviantArt website against art on popular NFT marketplaces. If the algorithm identifies art that is similar, it notifies and instructs the author how they can contact NFT marketplaces to request that they take down their plagiarized work.

The BBC reported a case of insider trading when an employee of the NFT marketplace OpenSea bought specific NFTs before they were launched, with prior knowledge those NFTs would be promoted on the company's home page. NFT trading is an unregulated market in which there is no legal recourse for such abuses.

When Adobe announced they were adding NFT support to their graphics editor Photoshop, the company proposed creating an InterPlanetary File System database as an alternative means of establishing authenticity for digital works.

The price paid for specific NFTs and the sales volume of a particular NFT author may be artificially inflated by wash trading, which is prevalent due to a lack of government regulation on NFTs.

In January 2022, it was reported that some NFTs were being exploited by sellers to unknowingly gather users' IP addresses. The "exploit" works via the off-chain nature of NFT, as the user's computer automatically follows a web address in the NFT to display the content. The server at the address can then log the IP address and, in some cases, dynamically alter the returned content to show the result. OpenSea has a particular vulnerability to this loophole because it allows HTML files to be linked.

Pyramid/Ponzi scheme claims

Critics compare the structure of the NFT market to a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, in which early adopters profit at the expense of those buying in later. In June 2022, Bill Gates stated his belief that NFTs are "100% based on greater fool theory".

"Rug pull" exit scams

A "rug pull" is a scam, similar to an exit scam or a pump and dump scheme, in which the developers of an NFT or other blockchain project hype the value of a project to pump up the price and then suddenly sell all their tokens to lock in massive profits or otherwise abandon the project while removing liquidity, permanently destroying the value of the project.

References

External links

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A non-fungible token ( NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain, and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded.

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Crypto Kitties, which is a blockchain game on Ethereum created by Canadian studio Dapper Lads in 2017. It is one of the earliest attempts to deploy blockchain technology for recreation and leisure.

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Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction which explores posthuman identities primarily through the representation of close relationships between human subjectivity and artificial intelligence or …

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Art work from Leopoldo D'Angelo

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Neon and corporate dystopias: why does cyberpunk refuse to move on?

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Repeatedly reproduced and reimagined since the 80s, the tropes of cyberpunk must evolve or die

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The metaverse (a portmanteau of "meta-" and "universe") is a hypothesized iteration of the internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets.

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The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, and Who Will Build It - MatthewBall.vc

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There's a reason every Big Tech CEO has a well-worn copy of "Snow Crash" in their office.

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Understanding the metaverse is complicated, especially because it doesn't exist yet. Since companies like Epic Games, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Facebook ( I mean, "Meta"), won't stop talking about it, there's an evolving lexicon to describe the next iteration of the internet.

In that spirit, Quartz compiled a vocabulary list for the metaverse-curious reader:

Defining the metaverse

Metaverse: If the contemporary internet experience is two-dimensional-meaning you browse and scroll through it on a screen-the metaverse is 3D. You'll be "walking" through it via connected headsets or glasses.

It is unclear whether there will be one metaverse or many different separate metaverses (or any metaverse at all, really), but this seems to be the one constant: The metaverse is an immersive next-generation version of the internet, likely rendered by virtual or augmented reality technology.

The venture capitalist Matthew Ball, whose writing on the metaverse has influenced Mark Zuckerberg, describes the metaverse as a "successor state to the mobile internet" and a "platform for human leisure, labor, and existence at large."

Meet your digital twin

Mirrorworld: A mirrorworld is a digitally rendered version of the real world where there are virtual counterparts of real-life people, places, and things. Mirrorworlds are often found in sci-fi, including Netflix's Stranger Things, The Matrix film series, the novel and film Ready Player One. The metaverse could be a mirrorworld designed to precisely reflect the physical world, or could resemble an entirely invented world one might encounter in a video game.

Skeuomorphic design: The wonky term essentially means that virtual objects will be made to closely resemble real-world ones. The metaverse could resemble the physical world, in that it will often appear tethered to the physics and designs of our reality, but it doesn't have to be identical to it.

Digital twin: A digital twin is a virtual version of a real-life object or structure. The term was first introduced in the 1991 book Mirror Worlds by David Gelernter, digital twin technology was first used by NASA (PDF) to run simulations of space capsules in 2010. Microsoft, in particular, has emphasized the need for digital twin technology in building the metaverse.

Avatar: An avatar is your persona in a virtual world. This digital rendering of your appearance may look like you, resemble a cartoon (as popularized by Snapchat's Bitmoji and Apple's Memoji), or appear as fantastical as Fortnite's "skins."

What's the difference between VR and AR?

Virtual reality (VR): VR is an immersive experience where one puts on a headset and sees, and can operate within, a digital world. VR currently uses full headsets rather than glasses, immersing the user in a 360° virtual world that they can move around in-as long as they don't bump into physical walls.

Conference-goers try on Facebook's Oculus Quest device in 2019.

Augmented reality (AR): AR is a digital overlay projected on the real world. Think of Niantic's Pokemon Go, Snapchat's dancing hot dog, or even wearables like Google Glass. While Google Glass never took off, we could soon be peering through AR-connected glasses like Facebook's Ray-Ban Stories or Snapchat Spectacles.

Mixed reality (MR): Mixed reality incorporates elements of VR and AR, but the exact definition is murky. A person can interact with virtual and real-world objects, and virtual objects can interact with real-world ones. For example, the Snapchat hot dog can dance across a table without falling off the edges.

Extended reality (XR): Extended reality is a catch-all term for VR, AR, and MR, concepts that often overlap. Eventually, the lines between VR, AR, and MR might blur as the metaverse becomes a reality-making XR a more appropriate term.

Navigating the many metaverses

Neal Stephenson: Stephenson is a science fiction writer who coined the term "metaverse" in his popular 1994 novel Snow Crash. In the novel, the metaverse is a persistent virtual world navigated by the aptly-named protagonist Hiro Protagonist.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG): MMORPGs are interactive games that form the basis of what many feel will be the metaverse. Millions of people interact in shared spaces-playing games, building things, visiting virtual shops, and even going to concerts. Examples include Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, or the NFT-based Axie Infinity.

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Contestants compete during the Fortnite World Cup Duos Finals in 2019.

Oculus and Horizon Workrooms: Facebook bought Oculus for $2.3 billion in 2014. While it's been a leading VR platform for years, Oculus may now be the portal for many hoping to peek at Facebook's vision for the metaverse. Facebook has already introduced a virtual work experience called Horizon Workrooms, a sort-of VR version of Zoom with legless avatars.

Second Life: An online virtual world, introduced in 2003, Second Life is an early example of social experiences in the metaverse. Although not quite an MMORPG (it's not designed for game-play), Second Life remains an open-world social network with avatars. The metaverse might resemble a VR version of Second Life.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs): Blockchain-based certificates of authentication for digital objects, which could allow proof of ownership of goods in the metaverse.

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The vocabulary you need for the metaverse

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Understanding the metaverse is complicated, especially because it doesn't exist yet. Since companies like Epic Games, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Facebook ( I mean, "Meta"), won't stop talking about it, there's an evolving lexicon to describe the next iteration of the internet.

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A Chinese tik-tok model in metaverse.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COXdZxcYIS0

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Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner: 2049 (2017), the sequel to Ridley Scott's (1982), explores many of the same topics, including the development of advanced biotechnology and the (in)ability to distinguish between humans and bioengineered replicants. Like Scott's Blade Runner, Villeneuve's considers how 'human' and 'nonhuman' identity is constructed. Because replicants' physical appearances do not immediately identify them as nonhuman, the human characters in appear to be obsessed with developing methods through which to reliably track replicants, with various forms of biometric data such as DNA and serial numbers serving as the primary means through which to identify a replicant. The biometric data used to track replicants is highly invasive: Wallace Corporation maintains extensive DNA records of each generation of replicants, and the serial number assigned to each individual replicant is engraved on their bones, meaning that their social identification is permanently incorporated into their bodies. One of the primary questions being raised by 2049, then, is how biological characteristics can be used to shape and reinforce concepts of identity.

The problem that the use of biometrics poses, Pramod Nayar argues, is that it forces individuals to identify themselves in terms of their biological traits "by constantly calling upon their bodies to identify, present, validate, show their ethnic membership, lineage and familial ties, all on one ID card".[1] The implications of this constant need to present one's body for verification is that it frames bodily identity within "a larger dataset of what all bodies are",[2] or what certain bodies should be. In 2049, replicant bodies are expected to be stable, predictable, and controllable, and their biometric data is used to ensure that they remain this way. Baseline tests are one method used to track the physiological and emotional state of the replicants. When the protagonist, a Nexus-9 replicant named K, fails a baseline test, his supervisor at the LAPD, Lt. Joshi, warns him that the "scan said you didn't look like you on the inside"[3] and insinuates that K will now be 'retired' unless he can escape from the city. What 2049 demonstrates, then, is the potential for biometric data to be used as the justification for the subjugation, control, and even execution of individuals who fail to meet specific biometric criteria.

The human characters in 2049 continually attempt to reinforce the biological distinction between humans and replicants. One of the ways through which this biological boundary is reinforced is through the rhetorical association of replicants with 'artificiality'. Throughout the film, humans call attention to replicants' bioengineered bodies using derogatory terms such as "skin-job" and "skinner".[4] These derogatory terms emphasize the replicants' 'artificial' skin, in comparison to the presumed 'authenticity' of human bodies. In Elana Gomel's discussion of posthuman ethics, she argues that the use of dehumanizing language can have important ethical implications, noting that it can be "a powerful linguistic tool for (re)drawing the boundaries of our biological species and thus facilitating extreme violence".[5] Because human society in 2049 relies on replicants as a source of slave labour, rhetorical techniques are employed to justify the violent and oppressive treatment of the replicants by using language that reinforces the idea that replicants are inherently 'inhuman' because of their biological differences.

While the discovery of a replicant that had given birth threatens to dismantle the boundary separating humans and replicants, Niander Wallace, the CEO of Wallace Corporation, obsesses over creating fertile replicants, arguing that colonizing space will require "more replicants than can ever be assembled".[6] Replicant reproduction is therefore seen as a new source of labour that can be used to support the human economy. Catherine Waldby argues that through the ascription of "biovalue" to bodies, "[b]odily matter that is deemed socially valueless can be redeemed by working its biological qualities in the interests of those whose bodies count in the social order".[7] While replicant bodies are considered to be 'socially valueless', fertile replicants represent a new potential source of biovalue. In Sherryl Vint's discussion of the reproductive value of replicant bodies, she argues that " Blade Runner 2049 makes visible a contemporary social fantasy of biology fully woven into capitalist production".[8] This 'fantasy' that capitalist production will be able to extract value from biological life serves as Wallace's justification for exploiting fertile replicants as a source of biovalue.

With the emphasis that the society in 2049 places on biological identity-both through the use of biometric data and in the ascription of biovalue to fertile replicants-it is unsurprising that replicants view themselves in terms of a biological hierarchy. Because the replicant child exists beyond the biological boundary separating humans and replicants, the child is considered by replicants to be evidence that they are "more than just slaves".[9] This new biological status appears to be the only way for replicants to escape human oppression: for example, when K begins to believe he might be the replicant child, his AI companion Joi insists that since he is "a real boy now" he is "too important" to use the initial from his serial number as a name.[10] And yet, even though it is eventually revealed that K is not the 'real' replicant child, this discovery does not cause him to return to his role as a blade runner; instead, K chooses to act independently of the LAPD, Wallace Corporation, and even the replicant uprising group by reuniting the replicant child with her father. While 2049 depicts the problematic consequences that biometric data and biovalue can have on identity, the film also reinforces the idea that an individual's ability to make autonomous choices exists beyond their biological identity as either 'human' or 'nonhuman'.

Films like 2049 play an important role in discussions relevant to critical posthumanism. By depicting the way that biological factors are used to differentiate between humans and replicants, 2049 demonstrates how 'human' identity is constructed in relation to biotechnological developments. As Elaine L. Graham notes in her discussion of posthumanism and popular culture, "[t]he ethical and political task rests in a better understanding of the social interests and future aspirations that lie behind these various depictions of human and post/human futures".[11] As our own society increasingly relies on the collection of biometric data and the ascription of biovalue to biological material, explorations of how biotechnology could affect concepts of human and nonhuman identity in films like 2049 can influence our approach to biotechnological advancements and allow us to consider the potential ethical implications of identifying individuals in terms of biological boundaries.

[1] Pramod K. Nayar, 'The Body, Reformatted', Posthumanism, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014, p. 102.

[2] Nayar, 'The Body, Reformatted', p. 83.

[3] Denis Villeneuve, director, Blade Runner: 2049, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2017, 1:24:25-1:24:27.

[4] Villeneuve, Blade Runner: 2049, 14:22-14:24, 16:23-16:24.

[5] Elana Gomel, 'Science (Fiction) and Posthuman Ethics: Redefining the Human', The European Legacy, vol. 16, no. 3, 2011, p. 341.

[6] Villeneuve, Blade Runner: 2049, 42:03-42:06.

[7] Catherine Waldby, The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine. London: Routledge, 2000, p. 157.

[8] Sherryl Vint, 'Vitality and Reproduction in Blade Runner: 2049', Science Fiction Film and Television, vol. 13, issue 1, 2020, 15-35, 16.

[9] Villeneuve, Blade Runner: 2049, 2:05:47-2:05:50.

[10] Villeneuve, Blade Runner: 2049, 1:15:16-1:15:18, 1:15:30-1:15:32.

[11] Elaine L. Graham, Representations of the Post/human: Monsters, Aliens, and Others in Popular Culture, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002, p. 37.

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Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner: 2049 (2017), the sequel to Ridley Scott's (1982), explores many of the same topics, including the development of advanced biotechnology and the (in)ability to distinguish between humans and bioengineered replicants. Like Scott's Blade Runner, Villeneuve's considers how 'human' and 'nonhuman' identity is constructed.

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NEW GENETIC technologies are exhilarating and terrifying. Society might overcome diseases by tweaking individual genomes or selecting specific embryos to avoid health problems. But it may also give rise to "superhumans" who are optimised for certain characteristics (like intelligence or looks) and exacerbate inequalities in society.

What is certain is that people will be able to make decisions about their lives in ways that were impossible in the past, when we relied more on random evolution than deliberation. In the words of Jamie Metzl, we are "Hacking Darwin," the title of his latest book. It is a thoughtful romp through new genetic technologies, with insights on what it means for individuals, society and even great-power politics.

The theme draws together discrete strands of Mr Metz's diverse background. He's worked for the United Nations on humanitarian issues in Cambodia and served on America's National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. He's been an executive at a biotechnology company, a partner at large investment fund in New York and a candidate for Congress from Missouri. But perhaps even more relevantly, he is the author of two sci-fi novels on genetics, "Genesis Code" and "Eternal Sonata."

As part of The Economist's Open Future project, we asked Mr Metzl about genetic engineering, inequality and the new "liberal agenda". Below the interview is an excerpt from his book, on the history of eugenics.

* * *
The Economist: What are the ways in which people are able to "hack Darwin" today and over the next 15 years or so?
Jamie Metzl: We have always fought against the inherent cruelty of natural selection, one of the two essential pillars of Darwinian evolution. We are now beginning to hack away at the second pillar, random mutation. Our growing understanding of how genes and biology function is opening the door to incredible medical applications like using genome sequencing and gene therapies to fight cancer and other diseases. But the healthcare applications of genetic technologies are only a station along the way to where these technologies are taking us.

Our ability to select embryos during in vitro fertilisation (IVF)-based on informed genetic predictions of both health-related traits and intimate characteristics like height, IQ and personality style-will grow over the coming years. We'll use stem cell technologies to expand the number of eggs that prospective mothers can use in IVF and therefore the range of reproductive options for parents. We'll deploy gene editing tools far more precise than today's CRISPR systems to make heritable genetic changes to our future offspring. Over the coming decades, Darwin's original concept of random mutation and natural selection will gradually give way to a process that is far more self-guided than anything Darwin could have imagined.
The Economist: Changing the nature of what it means to be human has huge consequences. What are the main ones?
Mr Metzl: We have internalised the idea that information technology is variable, which is why we expect each generation of our phones and computers to be better than the last. It's harder for us to come to grips with the idea that our biology could be as variable as our IT, even though we understand intellectually that somehow we evolved from single cell organisms to complex humans over the past 3.8 billion years. Starting to see all of life, including our own, as increasingly manipulable will force us to think more deeply about what values will guide us as we begin altering biology more aggressively.

If we want to avoid dividing our species into genetic have and have-nots-a dangerous reduction in our diversity-or a genetic determinism that undermines our humanity, we'll need to start living our values. But though we need to be mindful of the dangers, we must also keep in mind that these technologies have the potential to do tremendous good. Someday they might well help us avoid extinction level events like dangerous synthetic pathogens, a warmer climate, the fallout from a nuclear war or the eventual expiration of our sun.
The Economist: Do we have the ethical framework to handle this? If not, what might it look like if things go wrong?
Mr Metzl: We create beautiful art, philosophy and universal concepts like human rights but wipe out millions of each other in wars and genocides and still today invest massive amounts of our collective wealth in tools of mass murder. The "better angels of our nature" remain primary drivers in our development of genetic technologies, but the dark side of human nature could also be empowered through these same tools. We need a very strong ethical and cultural framework to increase the odds that we'll use these technologies wisely, not least because access to them will be decentralised and democratised.

Although the positive possibilities far outweigh the negatives, it would be crazy to ignore the many ways things could go wrong. Like Icarus, we could fly too close to the sun and get burned if we hubristically assume we know more than we actually do. Our gene drives could crash ecosystems. We could use these tools to undermine our common identity as a species and social cohesion. The good news is that while the technologies are new, the values we'll need to use them wisely are often old.
The Economist: What sort of regulations need to be in place to "enable" these technologies-and what rules should "constrain" them?
Mr Metzl: Genetic technologies touch the source code of what it means to be human and must be regulated. This job is all the more difficult because the technology is racing forward faster than the governance structures around them can keep up. On both the national and international levels, we'll need enough governance and regulation to prevent abuses and promote public safety while not so much to impede beneficial research and applications.

To avoid dangerous medical tourism, every country should have a national regulatory system in place that aligns with international best practices and the country's own values and traditions. We also have to start developing global norms that can ultimately underpin flexible international standards and regulations. These systems must be guided by core values rather than inflexible rules because what may now seem unthinkable, like actively selecting and even editing our future offspring, will increasingly become normalised over time. We urgently need to start preparing for what is coming.
The Economist: This takes the issue of human liberty to a new level (people should be free to change themselves or offspring), as well as the potential for unbridgeable inequalities (not just of wealth or life outcomes, but of capabilities encoded in oneself and family). How must the idea of liberalism adapt to address this? What does the "liberal agenda" look like for the 21st century vis-à-vis "hacking Darwin"?
Mr Metzl: If and when it becomes possible for some parents to give their children enhanced IQs, lifespans and resistance to disease, we will have to ask what this means for everyone else. Some will see these parents as first-adopters paving the way for everyone else, like the first privileged people buying smartphones. Others will call them usurpers laying the foundation for dangerously divided societies.

Whatever the case, differences within and between societies, fuelled by competition, will drive adoption of these technologies and present societies with stark choices. Too few regulations could lead to a dangerous genetic engineering free-for-all and arms race. But trying to ban genetic manipulations would increasingly require the trappings of the most oppressive police states. Some liberal societies may choose to provide a basic level of access to assisted reproduction and genetic-engineering services to everyone, not least to save the expense of lifetime care for people who would otherwise be born with preventable genetic diseases.

Societies already struggling to define the balance between the parental and state interests in the context of abortion will have an even tougher time drawing this line for parent-driven assisted reproduction. But if we thought the debates over abortion and genetically modified crops were contentious, wait until the coming debate over genetically modified people arrives. If we don't want this to tear us asunder, we must all come together in a public process to figure out the best ways forward.

* * *
The disgraceful history of eugenics Excerpted from "Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity" by Jamie Metzl (Sourcebooks, 2019)
The term eugenics combines the Greek roots for good and birth. Although coined in the nineteenth century, the concept of selective breeding and human population culling has a more ancient history. Infanticide was written into Roman law and practiced widely in the Roman Empire. "A father shall immediately put to death," Table IV of the Twelve Tables of Roman Law stated, "a son who is a monster, or has a form different from that of the human race." In ancient Sparta, city elders inspected newborns to ensure that any who seemed particularly sickly would not survive. The German tribes, pre-Islamic Arabs, and ancient Japanese, Chinese, and Indians all practiced infanticide in one form or another.

The 1859 publication of Darwin's The Origins of Species didn't just get scientists thinking about how finches evolved in the Galapagos but about how human societies evolved more generally. Applying Darwin's principles of natural selection to human societies, Darwin's cousin and scientific polymath Sir Francis Galton theorized that human evolution would regress if societies prevented their weakest members from being selected out. In his influential books Hereditary Talent and Character (1885) and then Hereditary Genius (1889), he outlined how eugenics could be applied positively by encouraging the most capable people to reproduce with each other and negatively by discouraging people with what he considered disadvantageous traits from passing on their genes. These theories were embraced by mainstream scientific communities and championed by luminaries like Alexander Graham Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill.

Although his work was partly in the spirit of the Victorian England times, Galton was then and even more now what we would call a racist. "The science of improving stock," he wrote, "takes cognizance of all the influences that tend in however remote degree to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had." In 1909, Galton and his colleagues established the journal Eugenics Review, which argued in its first edition that nations should compete with each other in "race-betterment" and that the number of people in with "pre-natal conditions" in hospitals and asylums should be "reduced to a minimum" through sterilization and selective breeding.

Galton's theories gained increasing prominence internationally, particularly in the New World. Although eugenics would later accrue sinister connotations, many of the early adopters of eugenic theories were American progressives who believed science could be used to guide social policies and create a better society for all. "We can intelligently mold and guide the evolution in which we take part," progressive theologian Walter Rauschenbusch wrote. "God," Johns Hopkins economic professor Richard Ely asserted, "works through the state." Many American progressives embraced eugenics as a way of making society better by preventing those considered "unfit" and "defective" from being born. "We know enough about eugenics so that if that knowledge were applied, the defective classes would disappear within a decade," University of Wisconsin president Charles Van Hise opined.

In the United States, the "science" of eugenics became intertwined with disturbing ideas about race. Speaking to the 1923 Second International Congress of Eugenics, President Henry Osborn of New York's American Museum of Natural History argued that scientists should:
"ascertain through observation and experiment what each race is best fitted to accomplish... If the Negro fails in government, he may become a fine agriculturist or a fine mechanic... The right of the state to safeguard the character and integrity of the race or races on which its future depends is, to my mind, as incontestable as the right of the state to safeguard the health and morals of its peoples. As science has enlightened government in the prevention and spread of disease, it must also enlighten government in the prevention of the spread and multiplication of worthless members of society, the spread of feeblemindedness, of idiocy, and of all moral and intellectual as well as physical diseases".
Major research institutes like Cold Spring Harbor, funded by the likes of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Kellogg Race Betterment Foundation, provided a scientific underpinning for a progressive eugenics movement growing in popularity as a genetic determinism swept the country. The American Association for the Advancement of Science put its full weight behind the eugenics movement through its trend-setting publication, Science. If Mendel showed there were genes for specific traits, the thinking went, it was only a matter of time before the gene dictating every significant human trait would be found. Ideas like these moved quickly into state policies.

Indiana in 1907 became the first U.S. state to pass a eugenics law making sterilization mandatory for certain types of people in state custody. Thirty different states and Puerto Rico soon followed with laws of their own. In the first half of the twentieth century, approximately sixty thousand Americans, mostly patients in mental institutions and criminals, were sterilized without their acquiescence. Roughly a third of all Puerto Rican women were sterilized after providing only the flimsiest consent. These laws were not entirely uncontroversial, and many were challenged in courts. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its now infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, that eugenics laws were constitutional. "Three generations of imbeciles," progressive Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes disgracefully wrote in the decision, "are enough."

As the eugenics movement played out in the United States, another group of Europeans was watching closely. Nazism was, in many ways, a perverted heir of Darwinism. German scientists and doctors embraced Galton's eugenic theories from the beginning. In 1905, the Society for Racial Hygiene was established in Berlin with the express goal of promoting Nordic racial "purity" through sterilization and selective breeding. An Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene was soon opened in Frankfurt by a leading German eugenicist, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer.

Eugenic theories and U.S. efforts to implement them through state action were also very much on Adolf Hitler's mind as he wrote his ominous 1925 manifesto, Mein Kampf, in Landsberg prison. "The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker," he wrote:
"Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all... Since the inferior always outnumber the superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they possessed the same capacities for survival and for the procreation of their kind; and the final consequence would be that the best in quality would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore a corrective measure in favor of the better quality must intervene...for here a new and rigorous selection takes place, according to strength and health".
One of the first laws passed by the Nazis after taking power in 1933 was the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Defective Offspring, with language based partly on the eugenic sterilization law of California. Genetic health courts were established across Nazi Germany in which two doctors and a lawyer helped determine each case of who should be sterilized.

Over the next four years, the Nazis forcibly sterilized an estimated four hundred thousand Germans. But simply sterilizing those with disabilities was not enough for the Nazis to realize their eugenic dreams. In 1939, they launched a secret operation to kill disabled newborns and children under the age of three. This program was then quickly expanded to include older children and then adults with disabilities considered to have lebensunwertes leben, or lives unworthy of life.

Making clear the conceptual origins of these actions lay in scientifically and medically legitimated eugenics, medical professionals oversaw the murder of an ever-widening group of undesirables in "gassing installations" around the country. This model then expanded from euthanizing the disabled and people with psychiatric conditions to criminals and to those considered to be racial inferiors, including Jews and Roma, as well as homosexuals. It was not by accident that Joseph Mengele, the doctor who decided who would be sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, was a former star student of von Verschuer at the Frankfurt Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene.

By the mid-1930s, the American scientific community was pulling away from eugenics. In 1935, the Carnegie Institution concluded the science of eugenics was not valid and withdrew its funding for the Eugenics Records Office at Cold Spring Harbor. Reports of Nazi atrocities amplified by the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials put the nail in the coffin of the eugenics movement in the West. Although eugenics laws were finally scrapped from the books only in the 1960s in the United States and the 1970s in Canada and Sweden, very few people were forcibly sterilized after the war.

But as new technologies more recently began to revolutionize the human reproduction process and create new tools for assessing, selecting, or genetically engineering preimplanted embryos, many critics raised the specter of eugenics.

[...]

The parallels between the ugly eugenics of the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth and what's beginning to happen today are not insignificant. In both cases, a science at an early stage of development and with sometimes uncertain accuracy was or is being used to make big decisions-forced sterilization of the "feeble-minded" in the old days, not selecting a given embryo for implantation or terminating a pregnancy based on genetic indications today. In both cases, scientists and government officials seek to balance individual reproductive liberty with broader societal goals. In both cases, future potential children lose the opportunity to be born. In both cases, societies and individuals make culturally biased but irrevocable decisions about which lives are worth living and which are not. These parallels offer us a powerful warning.

But if we collectively paint all human genetic engineering with the brush of Nazi eugenics, we could kill the incredible potential of genetics technologies to help us live healthier lives. [...] That there probably is an element of eugenics in decisions being made today on the future of human genetic engineering should push us to be careful and driven by positive values, but the specter of past abuses should not be a death sentence for this potentially life-affirming technology or the people it could help.

[...]

It's not that hard to imagine future scenarios when humans would need to genetically alter ourselves in order to survive a rapid change in our environment resulting from global warming or intense cooling following a nuclear war or asteroid strike, a runaway deadly virus, or some kind of other future challenge we can't today predict. Genetic engineering, in other words, could easily shift from being a health or lifestyle choice to becoming an imperative for survival. Preparing responsibly for these potential future dangers may well require we begin developing the underlying technologies today, while we still have time.

Thinking about genetic choice in the context of imagined future scenarios is, in many ways, abstract. But potentially helping a child live a healthier, longer life is anything but. Every time a person dies, a lifetime of knowledge and relationships dissolves. We live on in the hearts of our loved ones, the books we write, and the plastic bags we've thrown away, but what would it mean if people lived a few extra healthy years because they were genetically selected or engineered to make that possible? How many more inventions could be invented, poems written, ideas shared, and life lessons passed on? What would we as individuals and as a society be willing to pay, what values might we be willing to compromise, to make that possible? What risks would we individually and collectively be willing to take on? Our answers to these questions will both propel us forward and present us with some monumental ethical challenges.

___________
Excerpted from "Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity." Copyright © 2019 by Jamie Metzl. Used with permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved.

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How genetic engineering will reshape humanity

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NEW GENETIC technologies are exhilarating and terrifying. Society might overcome diseases by tweaking individual genomes or selecting specific embryos to avoid health problems. But it may also give rise to "superhumans" who are optimised for certain characteristics (like intelligence or looks) and exacerbate inequalities in society.

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What would it be like to live through our own species' evolution? The biological process of natural selection that gave rise to every species on Earth takes hundreds of generations to turn one species into another, but what if that process could be skipped entirely?

What would it be like to significantly upgrade humanity in a matter of decades, or even a few years? Welcome to Transhumanism, the movement determined to use breakthrough technologies to make humanity into something more.

What is a Transhuman?

The idea of altering or augmenting the human body through technology is as old as humanity itself. From the moment humans first fashioned tools and learned to harness fire, humanity stepped beyond its biological constraints.

Where evolution gave wolves a fierce set of teeth and the cheetahs unmatched speeds, evolution gave humanity the most sophisticated intelligence of any animal on the planet and humans have been using that intelligence to overcome their biological deficits.
SEE ALSO: NEURALINK: HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WILL DOWNLOAD DIRECTLY FROM A COMPUTER
Transhumanism talks about taking this dynamic and using it to not just impact the world around us, but to augment or even replace our biology with technology. Whereas humanity has fixed poor eyesight with corrective lens, straightened a person's teeth with braces, or countless other examples of humans altering out bodies or senses through technology, the transhumanist wants to replace the eye entirely or hijack existing senses in our bodies to detect any number of things that our bodies aren't built to sense.

A transhuman then is someone who has taken this step and upgraded their body in a way that doesn't just fix a deficient part to behave as commonly expected but replaces something that works perfectly fine in order to do something more than is biologically possible.

Neuroplasticity: Plug-And-Play For Our Brains

Transhumanism is possible because of something known as neuroplasticity, the capacity for the neurons in our brain to make new connections and reconfigure its network in response to new stimuli, information, trauma, or dysfunction.

Examples include learning new skills, remembering information, people, or events, making complex movements with our bodies without consciously thinking about it, and taking the cacophony of stimuli around us and making sense of it all. It's how we go through life with part of our vision being obstructed by our nose though we simply don't notice it.

According to the late Paul Bach-y-Rita, "we see with our brains, not our eyes." A neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the co-founder of Wicab-a company that develops technology based on his research-Bach-y-Rita has shown that in many ways, our senses are interchangeable. His pioneering research into blindness has even led to the development of a device that can allow someone to "see" with their tongue.

The key is understanding what sight-or hearing, or touching, or smelling, or any other sense-actually is: converting external stimuli to electrical signals that the brain then processes into our sensory perception of the world around us. Since the electrical signals traveling through our nervous system are no different from one another -they differ only in how the brain processes them-this leaves the door wide open for our existing sensors to be repurposed through technology.

If the visible light that enters our eye and "turns on" the rods and cones of our retina are essentially turned into a 0 or a 1 being tapped out onto our optical nerve, what is stopping us from creating an artificial eye that allows us to see a wider spectrum that includes infrared and ultraviolet light?

If the eye is essentially a video camera for our brain, why not swap out the camera? Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain may not know what to make of the different signals initially, but it will find a way to interpret them.

It will figure out how to "see" this new wavelength of light as if it were any other light. It's not hard to think of many other examples of this type of sensor swapping, which gives you an idea of why Transhumanist are such evangelists for the movement.

The Future of Transhumanism Is Happening Now

The idea of cyborgs running around is the stuff of science fiction films from the 1980s, but it is going to become a reality sooner than most people think. Transhumanists are a remarkably diverse group, with DIY "biohackers" and the US Department of Defense being two of the most prominent examples.

Piercings and tattoos are as old as civilization, but a Biohacker is willing to put their body in service of the movement-and not necessarily with medical approval or even assistance. Biohacking can range from something as simple as implanting yourself with an RF tag that you can use to open electronic locks when you come to work to more extreme augments like inserting a tiny magnet under the skin of your finger to detect magnetic fields.

Likewise, it's no surprise that armies around the world are eager to lead the way into the new frontier of transhumanism, generals and war leaders have always sought any means to give their army the upper hand over an opponent.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has come right out and said that humans "[were] the weakest link in defense systems." Some examples of DARPA's research into transhumanist technologies include allowing humans to convert plant matter to glucose, threat detection through optical implants, and even a way for humans to cling to the surface of a flat wall the way lizards do.

Sharing Your Brain With An AI

As computer technologies advance alongside biotechnologies, there is a growing convergence between the two in the form of neural interfaces that in the future can open the door to linking your mind directly to an AI in order to facilitate greater learning, overcome neurological conditions, or just to use the internet.

In the coming decades, as more advanced computer technologies continue to shrink in size, it's not out of the question that brain implants, linked to an AI, might be possible. In fact, DARPA has already started research along these lines.

How Human is Transhuman?

Without question, these examples of transhumanism point to one of the essential questions every student or teacher of philosophy has grappled with: what does it mean to be human?

Evolution gave us the brain which has given us technologies such as flint tools, the wheel, and clothing that enabled us to extend ourselves past our biological limitations. Is an artificial eye any different? Are we any less human for using an arrow to kill a deer rather than our bare hands? Who gets to decide?

Some critics argue that the two positions transhumanists propose, rejecting human enhancement through augmentation and implants entirely or wholeheartedly embracing everything the transhumanist movement represents is a false dichotomy.

Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New York-Lehman College, believes that there is a necessary discussion society must have before we introduce-or even think of developing-such technologies: "it is perfectly acceptable - indeed necessary - for individuals and society to have a thorough discussion about what limits are or are not acceptable when it comes to the ethical issues raised by the use of technologies."

What's more, observers and economists note the movement towards a transhumanist society will exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. Transhumanist technologies are expensive and will be for the foreseeable future, which inevitably means that the elites might pull even further ahead of the rest of the world, much of which is too poor for even basic healthcare.

How To Prepare For The Transhuman Revolution

The most essential thing that our society must do as these technologies advance is to have an open conversation about where we want humanity to go as a species. These technologies are being rapidly developed with no signs of slowing down, so it is up to us to decide how far down this road we want transhumanism to go. Unless we do, the transhuman future we will get may not necessarily be the one that we want.

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The Transhuman Revolution: What it is and How to Prepare for its Arrival

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What would it be like to live through our own species' evolution? The biological process of natural selection that gave rise to every species on Earth takes hundreds of generations to turn one species into another, but what if that process could be skipped entirely?

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NFTs and the future history of art – TechCrunch

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The factors that have determined whether art trends become art history are receiving scant attention amid the NFT writing of today.

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Facebook will be focusing on the metaverse.

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are the key to the metaverse, experts say.

With the digital tokens, people are becoming owners on the internet, instead of simply renters.

The world is still only in the very early stages of the metaverse, said crypto podcaster Andrew Steinwold.

And just like that, the term "metaverse" has gone mainstream.

Last week, social media giant Facebook announced it would change its name to "Meta" in an effort to move into the future of the internet, called Web3 or the metaverse.

Now, headlines about the metaverse, blockchain, and NFTs are dominating the news, and you might be wondering how they're all connected.

But let's start with the basics. What even is the metaverse?

Think of your physical world, the things around you, what and who you interact with. Now think of that physical world being digital. That's it. That's the metaverse.

Cathy Hackl, who has earned the title of godmother of the metaverse, put it like this to Vogue in an interview in September: "It's about the internet breaking free from the rectangles in our hands, desks and walls and being all around us."

It's like that Sims game so many grew up with, but better. Platforms like Decentraland and Cryptovoxels are already the social media of the metaverse in a way, said Andrew Steinwold, who hosts the crypto podcast Zima Red.

There, "you can build a gallery; you can put photos of yourself, just like regular social media. You can get creative, scratch that itch. You can be social. You can go talk to your neighbors, go attend events."

But what do NFTs and crypto have to do with all this?

Everything!

NFTs are the digital key to unlocking the metaverse, Shreyansh Singh, the head of Polygon's NFT and gaming arm, wrote in a Decrypt article.

An NFT, or a nonfungible token, is a unique digital asset stored on a blockchain, the same technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The tokens give users ownership in the digital world.

"That was kind of the missing piece of the puzzle," said Steinwold, who's also a managing partner of NFT-focused firm Sfermion. "Now that that's enabled, the metaverse is actually coming to fruition."

Wait ... what?

Let's say you have a Fortnite skin, Steinwold said, referring to a digital outfit for your video game character. You don't actually own it, even if you spent countless hours getting it. Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, owns it.

"It's kind of up to Epic Games' total purview whatever they want to do with it," Steinwold said. "If they want to delete my account, then they can do that ... They can just say, 'You know what, Andrew tweeted "screw Epic Games" this morning, we're going to delete all this stuff.'"

It's a communist system in the sense that users add value to the system but get nothing in return, Steinwold said. With NFTs, the internet is becoming more capitalistic, "where your time-money effort is actually rewarded through ownership."

"It's like if I use Facebook, and they somehow gave me some portion of stock from commenting, from liking, from uploading photos, because I'm adding value to that platform," he said, adding that people on the internet are becoming owners, instead of renters.

Will Facebook - I mean Meta - be part of the metaverse?

Some, including a key architect of Facebook's metaverse, have been skeptical of the company's plan.

As Steinwold put it, "If Facebook turned into a decentralized organization where it was user owned and governed, that would be a true part of the metaverse."
So what's next?
We haven't seen anything yet. You may remember, perhaps, the early days of "dial-up" internet in the 1990s when aol.com was the main platform. That's where we are with the metaverse and NFTs, Steinwold said.

"It's almost like if you asked me about Google or Airbnb or Uber back in the 1990s. I couldn't even explain to you what those are," he said.

"We are not even in the first inning, like the game hasn't started. We're still warming up."

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Why NFTs and the metaverse will make you an owner - not just a renter - on the internet

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NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are the key to the metaverse, experts say. With the digital tokens, people are becoming owners on the internet, instead of simply renters. The world is still only in the very early stages of the metaverse, said crypto podcaster Andrew Steinwold. And just like that, the term "metaverse" has gone mainstream.

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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Lost Art: Do NFTs mean the end of real-world art?

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The digital works can be seen as just the latest overhyped trend, or the newest incarnation of using technology to create art

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Cyberpunk, as a design trend, has risen and fallen in popularity since its first popularity spike in the 1980s. It combines Transhumanism, social commentary, punk, and futuristic technology into one style. This mix gives it ardent fans. As real dates converged with sci-fi worlds, futurism has bled into fashion designs that have graced various catwalks.

The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick, kickstarted the cyberpunk genre with its release in 1968. Fourteen years later, Blade Runner translated the story to film, which pushed it into the mainstream. This adaptation also gave the genre a visual template that others could follow. Michael Kaplan, the head costume designer, described how they sourced inspiration:

After reading the script, we definitely felt that Blade Runner was of that film noir genre, and we looked back to the films of the 1940s for inspiration. Deckard (Harrison Ford's character) was as much a Gumshoe as Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart). For Rachel's character, our chief inspirations were the tailored suits that Adrian designed in the late 1930s and early 40s.

Cyberpunk fashion, from its inception, thus appreciated how styles changed in cycles: a piece might be old hat one season but in vogue the next one. This style reflects a nostalgia for a different time. Nonetheless, this type of fashion isn't shackled to the past because it dares to modify established styles such as noir.

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Cyberpunk Clothing Might Be the Future of Fashion

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Cyberpunk, as a design trend, has risen and fallen in popularity since its first popularity spike in the 1980s. It combines Transhumanism, social commentary, punk, and futuristic technology into one...

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Contents

1. Introduction

2. Three Arguments on Defining a Cyberpunk Fashion Aesthetic

3. Cyberpunk Genre Media: Inspiration for the Aesthetic

4. Recurring Components in Cyberpunk Fashion

5. Dressing Cyberpunk in 2021

1. Introduction

The cyberpunk fashion aesthetic was once a fairly straightforward "look", one defined by the imagery and costumes of iconic primary media such as Blade Runner (1982) and Neuromancer (1984). However, as the genre evolved, new influential texts emerged and the collection of titles spawned not only a movement but also an aesthetic subculture, followed eventually by brands who claim inspirations from cyberpunk themes, if not specific films, books or games. This has resulted in an incredibly convoluted aesthetic, one that is hard to concretely define and that is segmented by different periods of time, a range of offline and online contexts, and by various communities who have participated in the scene via vastly different backgrounds.

In order to attempt and create a definition of the cyberpunk fashion aesthetic, I ventured online to challenge my own personal convictions that I've formed over the years. I found a range of arguments, some more convincing than others and many where significant overlaps had occurred. Three of the most persuasive singular arguments I encountered are summarised in the section below. If you'd like to get straight to the guide, please skip to Section 4.

If you'd like a refresher on cyberpunk as a sub-genre of science fiction, one of my first articles for Shell Zine is here: Novum, Science Fiction and Cyberpunk Media.

My good friend, Corbin Coffey ( YouTube | Instagram), has worked in parallel with me on this project, preparing his own video essay on how cyberpunk influences fashion.

2. Three Arguments on Defining a Cyberpunk Fashion Aesthetic

2.1 Cyberpunk as a Media Inspired Fashion Aesthetic
The Argument:

Cyberpunk as a style is a fashion aesthetic inspired by costumes and imageries presented in iconic media that fall within the cyberpunk genre.

Iconic fashion from Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Strengths of this argument:

There are multitudes of media including literature, film, and games that provide visual and described imageries, which can be deconstructed to create a template for a cyberpunk aesthetic. This data makes for a more aesthetically demarcated model than the other two arguments.

The fashion displayed in these media are presented in a setting that is distinctly dystopic and futuristic. For those who wish to explore opportunities of dressing for the future today, the use of cyberpunk media provides a considerable amount of context.

The imagery presented in cyberpunk media is by definition a core representation of the cyberpunk aesthetic. Regardless of whether there is credibility in the other two arguments, looks from iconic films such as Blade Runner (1982) or Ghost in the Shell (1995) are going to elicit aesthetic recognition as "cyberpunk" to a vast majority of people.

In the 21st Century, particularly in the West, formality and standards of dress have largely been eroded, especially in casual contexts. Film and television have provided fashion inspirations for decades. Wanting to emulate the characters in your favourite media is, in my opinion, a relevant source of inspiration for personal style; or at least no less relevant than every instance in which someone buys a leather jacket after seeing Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

Weaknesses of this argument:

There are some that would consider cyberpunk a "dead" sub-genre, one that had its heyday in the 1980's and 1990's. Modern titles, such as Blade Runner 2049 and Cyberpunk 2077, exist as retro-futurist homages that rehash imagery and tropes from past works; i.e. using only vintage-inspired media as inspiration does not address any evolution in the genre or the aesthetic.

Cyberpunk in its most influential phase was wrong about many things, particularly how technology evolved. In reality technology has become less about empowering people as individuals and more about controlling, monitoring and standardising consumers to corporate interests. Therefore, if cyberpunk as a genre has become outmoded by our current reality, can it be an inspiration for practical futuristic clothing?

Companies such as Magnoli Clothiers create close replicas of a number of cyberpunk costume pieces, including Deckard's Coat. Would wearing these pieces in public not be a directly cyberpunk media-inspired outfit? Yes, but I am sure many in the fashion community would also consider it cosplay. Does that mean that wearing fashion pieces that bear aesthetic similarities to costume pieces is somehow a fashion style just because it is not a replica? It will be a fine line, in my opinion.

2.2 Cyberpunk as a Real Life Sub Culture
The Argument:

Cyberpunk is a style that is worn by real life cyberpunks, who live by the high-tech-low-life mantra and practice radical anarchism.

Mondo 2000's tongue in cheek infographic below provides a surprisingly apt summary of what being a real cyberpunk could entail. On top of the obvious "punk" anarchist base, a clear fetishisation of consumer technologies is evident, combined with a "prepper" or "Every Day Carry" (EDC) mentality where one has a plethora of gear on their person at any one time.

Mondo 2000's Cyberpunk Infographic

Strengths of this argument:

The world has changed considerably since the early 1980's. Technology has shaped society in a way that has not only influenced our behaviours, but also the products and fashions that we use. Cyberpunk is argued by many to be a reality, not just fiction. Thus, it is also implied that there must be real life cyberpunks who exist in a non-fictional setting, and how they dress should be of interest when defining a cyberpunk fashion aesthetic.

If actual cyberpunks exist - living a life off the grid as a radical with a black market occupation made possible by new, especially computer-assisted and online technologies - then shouldn't the aesthetics embodied by these people define the 2021 cyberpunk look?

Nobody likes posers, especially not in the punk scene. A real life cyberpunk anarchist would have significant credibility and their own personal style would legitimise a particular aesthetic.

Weaknesses of this argument:

Cyber outlaws such as ISIS social media propagandists, Nigerian e-mail scammers and "Black Widows" who use online dating sites to seek their prey are all living high tech, low life lifestyles, but arguably none of these would have personal aesthetics that the average cyberpunk fan would find inspiring. They look to dramatically-clad cyberpunk protagonists such as Agent K, JC Denton, or Major Kusanagi, not to impoverished thieves or political radicals.

An actual, real-life ideological cyberpunk is going to be a criminal. You cannot express anti-establishment views on the Internet let alone act on them without legal repercussions, given the state of surveillance that has been achieved both offline and online. Thus, actual outlaw cyberpunks are not likely to be wearing any sort of uniform that would identify them as such out of fear of law-enforcement attention.

How many people involved in cyberpunk as a scene or fandom are actual radicals, living an outlaw lifestyle using their technology to fight the system? Very few I would guess. You do not have to like or even have seen Blade Runner to be an actual black hat hacker or cyber anarchist. This limits the scope of any kind of aesthetic that could be gleamed from a real-life cyberpunk's look.

2.3 Cyberpunk Today has Evolved to Techwear
The Argument:

Cyberpunk as a style is dictated by the aesthetics of "techwear" as it is argued that we already live in a dystopia (as loosely predicted in cyberpunk media) and techwear has evolved as a modern, current day application of production and consumer technologies in the clothing and fashion industries.

Ukrainian Techwear Brand Riot Division's 2017/18 FW Lookbook Opener

Strengths of this argument:

While most cyberpunk fans might not have even heard of, much less buy or own any, techwear it appears a large majority of online techwear fans enjoy cyberpunk as a genre or at least a few of its iconic titles. Techwear fans as a movement online can provide inspiration and share practical imagery and information regarding products and brands around the world for free using social media technology. They have displaced corporations as the dominant source of inspiration for their style, something I personally find futuristic if not cyberpunk.

Techwear is decidedly urban in context and many of its most representative brands and pieces provide weather resistance; and both of these components have strong parallels with the typical cyberpunk setting that is defined by environmental degradation and late stage progression of urbanisation and consumerism.

There are numerous brands that cite direct cyberpunk influences in their product designs or branding. This lends legitimacy to an overlap of the techwear style with a cyberpunk fashion aeshetic. It should be noted that not all of these brands are marketed as "techwear": such as Raf Simons' 2018 Spring Summer men's line which directly referenced the Blade Runner universe and is decidedly in the high fashion segment rather than the techwear market.

Weaknesses of this argument:

As per the first strength, techwear fans comprise a minority of cyberpunk fans, and just because they are interested in clothing that they may argue is more "futuristic" than other garments due to technology, does not mean that their movement's aesthetic would also define cyberpunk's.

Techwear is not something new. Brands have been applying advanced garment construction and material technologies to consumer clothing since the 1970's, if not earlier, predating cyberpunk as a media genre or an aesthetic, and while many modern brands have cyberpunk influences, others such as Lululemon and Outlier do not, and are unarguably popular in the techwear community regardless.

Top of the line garment manufacturing technology is possessed by large corporations, not small scale "techwear" brands, and the outdoors and performance sports markets are the ones providing actual material and assembly innovation in terms of weight savings, weather-resistance, comfort, and practicality which they then leverage as competitive advantage on large scales. If we are to accept that modern cyberpunk should be defined by the most technologically advanced clothing, then techwear takes a back seat to the majority of multinational outdoors brands such as Arc'teryx and The North Face (TNF). And while TNF FuseForm Gore-Tex shells could be easily incorporated into a techwear outfit, neither the inspiration nor the typical application of these high-performance outdoor pieces are future-oriented or cyberpunk.

I personally would argue that techwear is more a modus operandi for practical consumption than it is an aesthetic "style". Techwear at its best is lifestyle appropriate, context considerate, and maximises utility: both practically as garments and socially as fashion. Techwear at its worst is low performance, overpriced streetwear and not an actual marriage of personal preferences and lifestyle practicality. While cyberpunk as a style could easily be applied to a techwear outfit, taking one of the numerous styles that are popular in techwear online and saying it is "cyberpunk" by virtue of it being "techwear" doesn't work.

2.4 Summary

Each argument above has its strengths and its limitations. None of them are universal or holistic when reflecting on the vast sources of visual and thematic inspiration one would find when searching "cyberpunk fashion". Perhaps then, any robust model for defining the cyberpunk fashion aesthetic would need to include all three perspectives, and possibly even more. However, for this article I have decided to focus solely on the first argument where a cyberpunk fashion aesthetic is one that can be analysed from existing cyberpunk media sources. I would like to revisit the other two arguments for future articles as I believe that both cyberpunk as an ideology and cyberpunk as techwear (or just cyberpunk-inspired fashion) have their own interesting perspectives that should be explored.

3. Cyberpunk Genre Media: The Inspiration for the Aesthetic

This section introduces a few of the iconic fashion looks derived from various cyberpunk media. For an ever-expanding list of cyberpunk titles see Shellzine's Cyberpunk Media Index. The looks here will be analysed for aesthetics, form and context to find recurring garments, styling and design components, which will be summarised into a cyberpunk fashion aesthetic model in Section 4.

Firstly, nothing is more iconic in the cyberpunk genre than Rick Deckard's trench coat worn in Blade Runner (1982). Not only did this film define the visual aesthetic for decades to come, but that coat in particular has been referenced if not directly emulated by countless other cyberpunk titles. In this section I will argue that even the most iconic titles such as Ghost in the Shell (1995) and The Matrix (1999) made heavy use of genre tropes in their costume design and fashions.

Rachel's mixed material coat and Deckard's iconic trench in Blade Runner (1982)

Blade Runner (1982) was a genre-defining movie not just because it was the pioneer, but also due to its exacting attention to detail in sets, props and costumes for world-building. Michael Kaplan, head costume designer alongside Charles Knode for the production, had the following insights to share:

After reading the script, we definitely felt that Blade Runner was of that film noir genre, and we looked back to the films of the 1940s for inspiration. Deckard (Harrison Ford's character) was as much a Gumshoe as Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart). For Rachel's character, our chief inspirations were the tailored suits that Adrian designed in the late 1930s and early 40s. I liked the idea of combining different shades of suiting fabrics to create patterns - something Adrian did. In this case I used amazing vintage suiting woollens in shades of grey and beige, with metallic threads that I was lucky enough to find, which created a subtle luminous quality. I wanted to create a futuristic heroine who was believable in the future, but with her feet firmly planted in film noir past.
Michael Kaplan for AnOther Mag 2012

A key takeaway is the use of subtlety to construct the film's visual narrative. Minor deviations from the traditional trench can be seen in Deckard's coat, including twin throat straps and an exaggerated collar with quilted lining. Each character's costume, aside from Zhora's rather extroverted ensemble, utilise such subtleties to develop from the film noir base.

While pouring over the costuming and clothing designs in other cyberpunk iconic titles; it became clear that these subtle exaggerations were an important component of the aesthetic. In Johnny Mnemonic (1996), Keanu Reeve's suit and tie, which would be a fairly boring costume for a science fiction movie in most cases, utilise a sharkskin wool silk texture to provide a metallic sheen, a texture used for Rachel's costumes in Blade Runner (1982) as well, and further, Johnny's suit shoulder pads are exaggerated.

Subtle details including a metallic sheen and exaggerated shoulders on Johnny Mnemonic's suit

Deckard's blazer and coat were given a threadbare look, both to communicate the retired gumshoe trope and to establish the setting of an Earth in decline. While the costumes in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) were for the most part a disappointment (e.g. Harrison Ford in a t-shirt and jeans), Agent K's jacket was an excellent example of a costume piece that represented both the realities of the setting and the needs of the character. Just as Deckard's film noir trench coat was modernised, so too has Agent K's field jacket, using faux leather and polyester fleece in light of the film's setting where real animals and their hides had become scarce and to reiterate that Agent K was a low income earning replicant. The exaggerated high collar also provided atmospheric protection, with mixed materials in the outer shell referencing but not completely mimicking the costumes in the original movie. Joi's look was a much more literal emulation of Zhora's from the original film; and reinforces the argument that most of the costuming and fashion designs in cyberpunk media are derived from earlier established titles.

Zhora in Blade Runner (1982) and Joi in a similar PVC rain coat and over knee boots in Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Another cyberpunk film that emulates earlier titles in the genre and which used weathering in its costumes to signify a dystopian setting is Hardware (1990). While not a great movie, the costuming utilised so many tropes in pretty much every character's costume that it served as a good example of a cyberpunk media fashion style. Long duster coats, leather bomber jackets, cargo pants, boots and plenty of tactical accessories: Hardware (1990) uses conventional late 80's clothing to construct a clearly identifiable cyberpunk look.

A fleece lined bomber, weathered long coat, cargo pants, and engineer boots: Cyberpunk fashion staples seen in Hardware (1990)

The Matrix trilogy has been significantly influential on the cyberpunk aesthetic due to its popularity, using a wide scope of references for its own costuming. Trinity and her form-fitted latex looks were heavily inspired by the cybergoth music scene of the 1990's and Liquid Television's Aeon Flux (1991), a brunt of Neo's outfits are kung-fu pieces, and Morpheus, below, is in a virtual clone of Rick Deckard's outfit from Blade Runner (1982) albeit in a much darker palette. Even the prevalent use of dramatic sunglasses in the Matrix is pre-dated by cyberpunk films such as Nemesis (1992). Thus, while the Matrix trilogy remains highly influential, it's aesthetic style borrowed heavily from pre-existing genre tropes.

Trinity, Neo, and Morpheus from The Matrix: Reloaded (2003)

Nemesis (1992) like Hardware (1990) is not a great film but it embodies plenty of cyberpunk tropes with long trench coats, black aviator sunglasses and plenty of tactical accessories and hardware.

Nemesis (1992) Japanese Poster showcasing the film's heavy use of Sunglasses

While games are a heavy visual medium, their influence on fashion in the cyberpunk genre has not been as significant as the film industry's. Rather, most of the games in the cyberpunk genre are instead heavily referential of iconic films such as Blade Runner (1982). Rise of the Dragon (1990) and Snatcher (1994) both feature Deckard clones in terms of their protagonists' designed outfits.

Hideo Kojima's highly referential cyberpunk detective game: Snatcher (1994)

Original Costumes from Blade Runner (1982) and Dune (1984)

Deus Ex (2000) was an extremely well regarded game and spawned numerous sequels. A heavy Matrix (1999) inspiration can be identified in the protagonist, JC Denton's long black coat, sunglasses and knee high boots outfit. 16 years later, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016) was released featuring the main character in a very similar coat albeit with ACRNM, the logo of a techwear brand, attached to the collar. The later titles featured high quality graphics and impressive cybernetic augmentations on many of the characters, which reinforced the gothic references primarily derived from the Matrix and earlier Deus Ex titles.

JC Denton's original coat in Deus Ex (2000) and the updated version in Deus Ex Mankind Divided (2016)

The "look" in the majority of cyberpunk video games can be summarised in a few categories. The first are literal Deckard clones, which includes the majority of the mystery type adventure games such as Snatcher (1994). The next include military combat uniforms, such as the Metal Gear series (1987 to 2018) where the original protagonist is a homage to Snake Pliskin from Escape from New York (1981) including his combat fatigues. The Ghost in the Shell games, aside from referencing their source material, typically fall into this military uniform trope. Then there are games like the Deus Ex series with JC Denton and Adam Jensen both being hybrids of the Matrix gothic style mixed with cybernetics and military hardware to provide an element of science fiction. Finally there are those like Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2077 which again use futuristic military hardware and cybernetics but rooted firmly in a 80s and 90s street fashion base. None of these games really provide iconic looks that are definitive of the cyberpunk aesthetic but rather they use referential clothing to enhance the aesthetic of their own games, adding value to the cyberpunk aesthetic via attrition.

Despite not having a visual aspect to the medium, many cyberpunk novels feature extensive descriptions of clothing if not fashion. William Gibson in particular is well known for his extensive descriptions of clothing and fashion in his novels. I remember reading a chapter from Gibson's Virtual Light, where the protagonist, Rydell, went on a shopping trip to a large mall/port called Container City where large freighters from around the world docked to unload inexpensive merchandise stored in shipping containers to a swarming hive of consumers. Rydell purchased a new outfit of cheap basics; I believe it was a burgundy bomber jacket and a few black tees and a pair of jeans. That imagery appealed to me somehow, and even though I was attempting similar looks years prior to reading that book, I still remember and feel influenced by that particular passage with its apt representation of the modern man's relationship with his clothing and how it has manifested into a practical uniform for the 21 st century.

Nathan Anderson's illustrations of Case, Molly and Armitage from Neuromancer (1984)

For his senior thesis project, Nathan Anderson, illustrated most of the significant character's in Neuromancer (1984) and expanded this to Count Zero (1986) as well: LINK These outfits utilise subtle differences in the way that many cyberpunk film costumes have to illustrate a near future timeline and setting.

Nathan Anderson's illustrations of Bobby Newmark, Turner and Marly from Count Zero (1986)

While a majority of the narratives in anime, manga and comics could be said to be relatively shallow, I would argue that some of the most iconic cyberpunk aesthetics can be found in this medium. Unfettered by the constraints placed on film costume designers such as conventional pattern making, budget or time, anime and manga illustrators can deliver more fantastic exaggerations in the designs worn by their characters and have them work more cohesively in their futuristic drawn environments.

Trevor in a Blade Runner inspired outfit with Aeon in Aeon Flux (1991)

Ghost in the Shell's (1995) is one of the most successful at creating an iconic cyberpunk fashion look for its characters and that is in my opinion linked to the same subtlety that made Blade Runner (1982) so iconic. Military pieces such as bombers and field jackets have minor tweaks including non-standard colours, more exaggerated collars, and an extra pocket or detail here and there. Despite this, the designs are still heavily inspired by earlier titles, in the case illustrated below: Akira (1988). Akira's own looks take from the Japanese biker scene in the 1980's, specifically from makers such as Kadoya, which you can read more about in this Shellzine article: LINK. Aeon Flux (1991) with its heavy use of latex and form fitting costumes or bare skin was a large inspiration for certain looks in the Matrix (1999) and it too uses Deckard's iconic looks and its own subtle modifications to entrench itself in the cyberpunk aesthetic.

Major Kusanagi's jacket in Ghost in the Shell (1995) is heavily based on Kaneda's Jacket in Akira (1988)

The cyberpunk aesthetic is a mixture of film noir, gothic and 80's to 90's casual fashions, using garments that often feature subtle exaggerations or deviations in silhouette and materials; further accessorised with futuristic military hardware if not cybernetic prosthetics that place the character in a near future sci-fi setting. If we remove the holster, futuristic blaster gun and the flying car from Deckard's arsenal, he would look like a downtrodden 40's film noir detective. If we took away Kaneda's laser gun, he would be just some kid wearing an 80's leather Kadoya biker suit. Cyberpunk media looks are defined by subtle exaggerations of existing clothing archetypes rather than the fantastic, often alien, costumes as you would expect from the looks provided in far-future set science fiction titles. It is safe to say that many of the looks prevalent in cyberpunk media rely on props to reinforce a science fiction aesthetic. I will argue that this is actually a good thing, as it will be the props that take a cyberpunk aesthetic into cosplay territory. This leaves the remaining tropes to be referenced in contemporary fashion outfits without looking like one is playing dress up.

4. Recurring Components in Cyberpunk Fashion

Based on the media analysis of aesthetic fashion tropes in cyberpunk above, a number of recurring styling and garment components can be clearly identified. Below, each component of an outfit can be broken down into frequently referenced garment types and styling cues. These can be used to create your own looks that embody the cyberpunk media-inspired fashion aesthetic.

4.1 Outerwear

Outers from Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Ghost in the Shell (1995), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and Blade Runner (1982)

Typical Outer Types: Styling Notes: Common Details:
4.2 Tops

Tops from Total Recall 2070 (1999), Altered Carbon (2018), Almost Human (2013), and Orphan Black (2013)

Typical Tops Types: Styling Notes: Common Details:
4.3 Bottoms

Bottoms from Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2015), Mute (2018), Escape from New York (1981), and Aeon Flux (2005)

Typical Bottoms Types: Styling Notes: Common Details:
4.4 Footwear

Footwear from Neuromancer (1984), Blade Runner (1982), Hardware (1990), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Typical Footwear Types: Styling Notes: Common Details:
4.5 Accessories

Accessories from Nemesis (1992), The Matrix (1999), Blade runner (1982), and Mr Robot (2015)

Typical Accessory Types: Styling Notes: Common Details:
5. Dressing Cyberpunk in 2021

So you live in 2021, you've enjoyed various cyberpunk media from Blade Runner to Neuromancer or perhaps you even feel inspired by the rebellious "high tech low life" ideology. Luckily there are, for all intents and purposes, a limitless supply of clothing at all price points that can work to reference the fashion themes outlined in the previous section.I feel that there is plenty of room to manoeuvre within the guidelines to accommodate a wide variety of lifestyles, brands, personal taste preferences, and context requirements. The goal is to create your own cyberpunk-inspired style and not simply emulate a costume.

I put together the following outfits for this article as my own personal interpretation of dressing cyberpunk in 2021. I shot these looks on my roof, with no dramatic backgrounds, no rendered science fiction imagery, so they could stand on their merits in terms of inspiration and stylistic referencing. All were worn with Danner Tachyons, a lightweight and versatile jungle boot that I feel fit the aesthetic. As someone who lives an active lifestyle and commutes on foot daily through urban environments, I aim to dress for practicality by blending the techwear perspective with the cyberpunk references that I am inspired by. These looks are not prescriptive but rather just examples of how I would apply the fashion components prior identified.

5.1 Look 1

With a high collar, cropped, boxy jacket inspired by one of Batou's and Aeon Flux's jackets, and a Mandarin collared overshirt that I've referenced from Neo's tops in The Matrix trilogy, I felt this was a good example of subtle styling without crossing into cosplay territory. The extra pockets and details are evident but not excessive in a way that overpowers the look. The cotton membrane outer has taken on a slight patina, providing a "lived-in" weathering that I feel fits in with the genre trope.

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5.2 Look 2

A long protective trench coat in water-resistant laminated nylon, with a dimpled texture and subtle tactical details is paired over a worn, faded black t-shirt, styled tucked in, to casual cotton pants. The look is accessorised with a military digital watch, tactical backpack and a holster bag. I wear similar iterations of this look regularly and it's part of what I'd consider my personal style. Inspiration-wise I feel it's a blend of Deckard's look from Blade Runner with some of the various military casual looks from the Ghost in the Shell series.

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5.3 Look 3

While the above two look predominantly feature pieces from my partner's made to order techwear label, ROSEN-X, I put this together just from random, budget pieces I had lying around to try and create a similar amalgamation of my personal active style and cyberpunk fashion references. A surplus long coat in vinyl that I got for $5, a pair of polyester Nike track pants and a cotton tee that I chopped the sleeves off are accessorised by a $15 Uniqlo waist bag, a modified $10 Casio and some headphones. I feel that it still conveys the cyberpunk image and retains practicality without using expensive designer pieces.

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5.4 Archive of Previous Cyberpunk-Inspired Looks

Over the years I've taken photos of dozens of outfits, many of them inspired by cyberpunk references. A few of my favourites are below. If you like these kinds of outfits, I do try to regularly post portraits and looks that feature my styling and coordination preferences on my Instagram and Tumblr.

Fair Use Statement: This article contains images hosted without express permission from their copyright holders. These images are provided for illustration purposes to support an informational objective. This should constitute fair use of any such copyrighted material.

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Introduction Three Arguments on Defining a Cyberpunk Fashion Aesthetic Cyberpunk Genre Media: Inspiration for the Aesthetic Recurring Components in Cyberpunk Fashion Dressing Cyberpunk in 2021 The cyberpunk fashion aesthetic was once a fairly straightforward "look", one defined by the imagery and costumes of iconic primary media such as Blade Runner (1982) and Neuromancer (1984).

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When Cathy Hackl's son wanted to throw a party for his 9th birthday, he didn't ask for favors for his friends or themed decorations. Instead, he asked if they could hold the celebration on Roblox. On the digital platform, which allows users to play and create a multitude of games, Hackl's son and his friends would attend the party as their virtual avatars.

"They hung out and played and they went to other different games together," she says. "Just because it happens in a virtual space doesn't make it less real. It's very real to my son."

The futility of throwing an outdoor pandemic-friendly event in January wasn't the only reason Hackl's son lobbied for a digital event. Roblox might be unknown to many over the age of, say, 25, but the 13-year-old platform is booming. Available on most desktop and mobile platforms, it is simultaneously a venue for free games, a creation engine that allows users to generate new activities of their own, and a marketplace to sell those experiences, as well as side products like outfits for a personalized avatar.

It's also part of the "metaverse." Once a niche concept beloved of tech enthusiasts, the idea of a centralized virtual world, a "place" parallel to the physical world, has careened into the mainstream landscape this year, as epitomized by Facebook's decision in October to rebrand as Meta. Millions of people are spending hours a day in virtual social spaces like Roblox and Fortnite. Interest in purely digital ownership-and the technology that proponents believe can ensure the security of persistent virtual experiences-has spiked dramatically, with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies making headlines. Virtual productivity platforms are growing too, with Facebook and Microsoft announcing new ways to collaborate online. Nike is even, analysts say, preparing to sell virtual sneakers. Hybrid offices, video-based education and online social communities are just a few of the ways in which more of our lives-for better or worse-is spent in digital spaces.

People like Hackl have already been heading in that direction for years.

After she was introduced to VR in the late 2000s, Hackl says she "pivoted really hard" into it. She reoriented her media career toward cinematic virtual reality work and then moved onto work with headset manufacturers, eventually serving as a "VR evangelist" for the HTC Vive headset. Today she says she's known as the "godmother of the metaverse."

For many younger people, like her son, such a pivot isn't even necessary: they're growing up with the expectation that a large part of their future will exist in the metaverse. It might be time for the rest of us to get on board-whether we like it or not.

Metawhat?

The word "metaverse" is often traced to Neal Stephenson's 1992 dystopic, cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, and many see a more recent inspiration in the dazzling warren of experiences at the heart of Earnest Cline's 2011 novel Ready Player One. However, the metaverse is far from the stuff of sci-fi. It's not even new.

Online communities have existed since at least the mid-1980s, and grew in the 1990s with chatrooms, AOL instant messenger and the first social media sites. The game World of Warcraft became a persistent social scene for millions in the early 2000s, and communities have continued to sprout up within and around games. Today, logging onto Fortnite, joining a chat with friends over a console platform and launching into a game with them is, especially to younger generations, just as social an experience as most other physical interactions.

Whether in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or simply on a screen, the promise of the metaverse is to allow a greater overlap of our digital and physical lives in wealth, socialization, productivity, shopping and entertainment. These two worlds are already interwoven, no headset required: Think about the Uber app telling you via location data how far away the car is. Think about how Netflix gauges what you've watched before to make suggestions. Think about how the LiDAR scanner on newer iPhones can take a 3D scan of your surroundings. At its core, the metaverse (also known to many as "web3") is an evolution of our current Internet.

"You've got your goggles on, 10 years from now, but they're just a pair of sunglasses that happens to have the ability to bring you into the metaverse experience," says John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, maker of a video game engine that is increasingly used to develop immersive experiences on other platforms. "You're walking by a restaurant, you look at it, the menu pops up. What your friends have said about it pops up."

For Riccitiello, the most exciting part of the metaverse is what it might mean for our relationships.

The idea that we might be able to "feel like we're together when we're not," he argues, could likely lead someone to create a company on par with Facebook and Apple.

Banks and investors are taking note.

"There's clearly a kind of a desire to move that direction," says John Egan, CEO of L'Atelier BNP Paribas and an investment analyst focusing on emerging technologies. "This metaverse concept gives us the opportunity to create any universe that we've ever imagined."

More than a social network

Hackl's son wasn't alone in having a birthday party on Roblox over the past year; the 16-year-old creator of the Roblox game Math Obby, who goes by the username 0bid0, threw himself a party to which he invited not just friends from school and Twitter, but also fans of the game. "I couldn't manage to make plans in real life because of the pandemic, so I took the chance of building a cool place to host the virtual event," he tells TIME.

Kids are not the only ones wading out into the metaverse breakers. Paul Tomlinson, 41, has worked remotely for years, living in rural Maine with his family and managing tax and financial-processing software for a firm that works with municipal and state governments. There's "nothing sexy" about the job, he says, but it does involve needing to have eyes on a large amount of data at once. A few years ago, this meant his desk had four different computer monitors on it. The cumbersome office setup was already a difficult and messy solution, but add in a disruptive (but adorable) cat and it became untenable.
Read more: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the Fusion of Virtual and Physical Worlds
Tomlinson had always been interested in virtual reality, but it wasn't until he tried the Oculus Quest headset and was introduced to a productivity app called Immersed that he found the answers to his work conundrum. Immersed pairs with your computer and, in the headset, sets up a workspace that allows for multiple virtual screens that you can arrange or size in whatever way you choose. And, crucially for Tomlinson, it's very difficult for cats to mess with virtual desktops.

"Within a week, I took the monitors off of my desk," he says. "It just made my life so much better."

For more than two years now, he has almost exclusively used virtual reality for his 40- to 50-hour work weeks: "Unless it's a business-critical meeting, I typically don't take off the headset."

Immersed VR has already netted millions in investment dollars and partnered with Facebook, Microsoft and Samsung in various roles. And for companies developing headsets, the COVID-19 work shake up provides an opportunity to do just as Renji Bijoy, Immersed VR's founder and CEO suggests, making the case that VR is less of a novelty and more of a quality-of-life tool.
Read more: Here's What Meta-Facebook's New Parent Company-Plans to Do
Few companies want that narrative shift more than Facebook, now Meta. Dodging damaging leaks, deflecting international calls for antitrust action and shrugging off its own stalled attempts to launch a decentralized digital currency, the social network, which owns the VR brand Oculus, has leaned far into the future that it promises to provide. Late in the summer, Facebook announced Horizons Workrooms (through the use of its Oculus Quest) as an alternative to the Zoom meetings that have become commonplace to many remote workers. (Facebook declined multiple requests to provide comment on this story.)

For now, spending any part of a workday in the metaverse still seems like a far-off dream for most of the global workforce. Tomlinson recognizes this. His coworkers took a while to adjust to the fact that he usually appears in group video meetings as an avatar, and his family is "not as enamored" as he is. Still, he sees himself as a "pioneer," of the future, and is comfortable in that role.

"I am an outlier, and it's a good thing that we have outliers who don't get bored easily," he says. "I have no hang ups about strapping boxes to my face for eight hours a day. I can do that."

Real money in the metaverse

A new kind of working from home is only part of what the metaverse can provide those out to make a buck. Case in point: metaverse entrepreneur Carrie Tatsu, 48. She has spent over 15 years making her living designing, marketing and selling avatars, pets and accessories for citizens of Second Life, a game that launched in 2003 as a blank-slate digital world where users could buy land and spend actual money on in-world customizable clothing. (If you think that sounds a great deal like the metaverse currently being touted by big tech, you would be correct.) Tatsu joined in a moment of dissatisfaction with her marketing job. Because she likes cats, she bought a pet for her avatar. The decision launched her career.

"I thought, well, you know, I think I can make a better cat," Tatsu says.

It didn't take long before she and her ex-husband set up a store, Zooby, and earned enough for her to quit her physical-world job to focus on creating Second Life pets and accessories full time. She quickly noticed the way other players were forging real connections to those virtual animals. "There was a paradigm shift in the way I looked at this," she says. "This wasn't like joining a video game and competing on something like a first-person shooter. This was a very emotional attachment to something that wasn't physical."

With Roblox, that kind of hustle has always been part of the game.

"You can imagine a future where I can go to the [virtual] hat store, and I have a very seamless experience to customize my hat I created, and now I can potentially then sell that hat to other people in the metaverse," Roblox Chief Product Officer Manuel Bronstein says. "We made it very easy for people to start monetizing those creations."

Many of those who are taking advantage of that potential are young users. Josh Okunola, for example, is a 17-year-old digital artist from Nigeria, currently studying in London, who has been playing Roblox since 2014. After a few years of exploring, he grew curious about the games' development tools and using his own artistic talent on the platform. In 2018, he netted his first Roblox paycheck-for $7-though he says his parents didn't believe it was real because, unable to withdraw it from PayPal, he could only spend it on digital goods.

With blockchain-based games, players can turn the time they spend into cryptocurrency. In the popular Axie Infinity, players buy, train and breed Pokemon-like creatures that are themselves NFTs, each one individually registered on the Ethereum blockchain. An active marketplace allows players to sell the creatures for cryptocurrency. Axie Infinity has seen a lot of international popularity during the pandemic; the Philippines has particularly seen a great deal of growth, with players of all ages using the game to earn money. You need to own three of these "Axies" before you can even play the game, and currently the lowest priced creatures on the marketplace are over $100.

These purely digital opportunities to make a living are inspiring a young generation to believe that the metaverse is the place to make their fortunes.

"Eventually I was able to cash out $1,000 from the platform," Okunola says of his Roblox art. "My parents were [in] shock because it was very rare to see a 16-year-old make that much in just a little time from a side hobby."

Reality Check

If there were ever any hope of weaning children off screen time, it was dashed by the pandemic. One German study published by DAK-Gesundheit found that usage of social media and video games was up by at least 60% in 2020 over 2019 among children between 12 and 17. Now imagine not just a screen, but a world.

Tatsu is the mother of two children and, despite having created a successful career in digital spaces, she insists that her children spend as much of their time as possible in the real world.

"It's so important for humans to be with humans in real life," she says. "And so I think that as kids grow up in this space, there will have to be outlets for people to engage, go smell a flower here, walk in on a trail, have a real conversation with your friend and throw a ball. I mean, even though you can simulate that, the simulation is not the same. And so I feel in some ways bad for my kids."

We all have far more to worry about in digital spaces than just time spent. The very probable idea that this is the direction technological innovation is heading does little to take into account whether it should be the direction we are heading.
Read more: Tim Cook on the 'Basic Human Right' of Privacy and the Technology That Excites Him the Most
If the metaverse is essentially an extension of the internet we currently have, one only has to think about the myriad problems that we have yet to solve in our online existence-hacking, catfishing, harassment, hate speech-to see how truly perilous a future on the metaverse could be.
Read more: The 5 Most Important Revelations From the 'Facebook Papers'
The consulting firm GlobalData notes concerns in how governments, notably the U.S., have been sluggish in their approach to cybersecurity concerns such as the rise of artificial-intelligence enabled misinformation, including videos known as deepfakes.

"These false images-again, going back to deepfakes-not only are used to trick users into giving away personal details, but also from a political perspective to convince them of something happening that has not happened or is just simply not true," Charlotte Newton, a thematic analyst at GlobalData, says.

"It's important to recognize that there are five really important problems we haven't yet solved in the mobile internet: data rights, data security, radicalization, misinformation and platform power," says Matthew Ball, author of the forthcoming The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything. "If the fundamental premise of the metaverse is that we will spend more of our time, labor, leisure, wealth, existence inside virtual worlds, then by definition, every one of those five problems is exacerbated. The amount of data captured and the importance of that data goes up, or the risks of data loss are intensified."

There's perhaps a reason many fictional touchstones for a metaverse, including Ready Player One and Snow Crash, take place in grim dystopias.

"There's no way the metaverse is going to help with things like income inequality, or food deserts, people who cannot buy groceries, disparities and access to health care," says science fiction writer Ted Chiang, on whose work the 2016 movie Arrival was based. "None of those things are things that you can deliver through the metaverse."

The Vision

True adherents would beg to differ. They believe that the metaverse has benefits for all, that it can expand access, opportunity, social networks and mental health-though even they have to admit that a lot of the good the metaverse can do is still speculative, and depends on a confluence of events, from hardware deployment to data infrastructure developments, on very fuzzy timelines.

What does exist for sure, argue proponents like Tatsu, is the already realized potential for the metaverse to increase empathy and inspire kindness.

"I think that when you're in a virtual space, they're usually smaller, they're usually more intimate. And I think that when we move into this world, where you really customize your avatar, you develop a more intimate relationship with the people you have online," she says. "Even though you're behind a screen or you're behind a headset, you still see somebody."

A few years ago, a surreal YouTube video made its way around the internet. In the middle of a standard VRChat session, which is itself a mosh pit of clashing avatars and frenetic voice chat, a user who was wearing a full body tracking suit apparently had a seizure. The episode underscored not only the actual distance between people in virtual spaces, but also the outpouring of concern for the person behind a red robot avatar.

Hackl sees the upcoming shift in technologies as a chance to shape a more inclusive mission and purpose. "I feel we're working on the printing press of the future," she says, "being able to preserve, let's say, a language that is soon to disappear. If you're able to retain not only in a flat video, you'll see the sound and you'll see the movement of lips and stuff. In a 3D performance capture and an actual 3D video, you'll be able to see a lot of the nuances of how the tongue moves, and the teeth move, and you'll be able to preserve the same dances as well as artifacts, stories, all sorts of things. I believe that that is something we're working on today to preserve those stories for the future."

To her, that future will be a better one, thanks in part to the metaverse.

"When I look at the architects of the internet, they were all men," Hackl says. "Being a Latina woman that is very publicly out there, I want more people like me. We need to see people like me, in these public facing roles, because you can inspire a lot more people to join and say, 'Hey, I am welcome in this metaverse world. I can build.'"

For those whose lives are already being lived partly in the metaverse-despite its pitfalls and risks-that building has begun.

Write to Peter Allen Clark at peter.clark@time.com.

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What Is the Metaverse and Why Should I Care?

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Once a niche concept, the idea of a centralized virtual world has careened into the mainstream landscape this year. Here's what to know

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The only thing we'd wanted to do was ensure that artists could make some money and have control over their work. Back in May 2014, I was paired up with the artist Kevin McCoy at Seven on Seven, an annual event in New York City designed to spark new ideas by connecting technologists and artists. I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to be; McCoy and his wife, Jennifer, were already renowned for their collaborative digital art, and he was better at coding than I was.

At the time, I was working as a consultant to auction houses and media companies-a role that had me obsessively thinking about the provenance, ownership, distribution, and control of artworks. Seven on Seven was modeled after tech-industry hackathons, in which people stay up all night to create a working prototype that they then show to an audience. This was around the peak of Tumblr culture, when a raucous, wildly inspiring community of millions of artists and fans was sharing images and videos completely devoid of attribution, compensation, or context. As it turned out, some of the McCoys' works were among those being widely "reblogged" by Tumblr users. And Kevin had been thinking a lot about the potential of the then-nascent blockchain-essentially an indelible ledger of digital transactions-to offer artists a way to support and protect their creations.

By the wee hours of the night, McCoy and I had hacked together a first version of a blockchain-backed means of asserting ownership over an original digital work. Exhausted and a little loopy, we gave our creation an ironic name: monetized graphics. Our first live demonstration was at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, where the mere phrase monetized graphics prompted knowing laughter from an audience wary of corporate-sounding intrusions into the creative arts. McCoy used a blockchain called Namecoin to register a video clip that his wife had previously made, and I bought it with the four bucks in my wallet.

We didn't patent the basic idea, but for a few years McCoy tried to popularize it, with limited success. Our first demo might just have been ahead of its time. The system of verifiably unique digital artworks that we demonstrated that day in 2014 is now making headlines in the form of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and it's the basis of a billion-dollar market. Head-spinning prices are now being paid for artworks that, just a few months ago, would have been mere curiosities. Last week, Kevin Roose, a technology writer for The New York Times, offered a digital image of his column for sale in a charity auction, and a pseudonymous buyer paid the equivalent of $560,000 in cryptocurrency for it. McCoy has just put up for sale the very first NFT we created while building our system. Capturing an animation called Quantum, it could go for $7 million or more, Axios reports.

I have no financial stake in that sale. The only NFT I own is the one I bought for $4, and I have no plans to sell it. I certainly didn't predict the current NFT mania, and until recently had written off our project as a footnote in internet history.

The idea behind NFTs was, and is, profound. Technology should be enabling artists to exercise control over their work, to more easily sell it, to more strongly protect against others appropriating it without permission. By devising the technology specifically for artistic use, McCoy and I hoped we might prevent it from becoming yet another method of exploiting creative professionals. But nothing went the way it was supposed to. Our dream of empowering artists hasn't yet come true, but it has yielded a lot of commercially exploitable hype.

If you liked an artwork, would you pay more for it just because someone included its name in a spreadsheet? I probably wouldn't. But once you leave aside the technical details of NFTs, putting artworks on the blockchain is like listing them in an auction catalog. It adds a measure of certainty about the work being considered. By default, copies of a digital image or video are perfect replicas-indistinguishable from the original down to its bits and bytes. Being able to separate an artist's initial creation from mere copies confers power, and in 2014 it was genuinely new.

But the NFT prototype we created in a one-night hackathon had some shortcomings. You couldn't store the actual digital artwork in a blockchain; because of technical limits, records in most blockchains are too small to hold an entire image. Many people suggested that rather than trying to shoehorn the whole artwork into the blockchain, one could just include the web address of an image, or perhaps a mathematical compression of the work, and use it to reference the artwork elsewhere.

We took that shortcut because we were running out of time. Seven years later, all of today's popular NFT platforms still use the same shortcut. This means that when someone buys an NFT, they're not buying the actual digital artwork; they're buying a link to it. And worse, they're buying a link that, in many cases, lives on the website of a new start-up that's likely to fail within a few years. Decades from now, how will anyone verify whether the linked artwork is the original?

All common NFT platforms today share some of these weaknesses. They still depend on one company staying in business to verify your art. They still depend on the old-fashioned pre-blockchain internet, where an artwork would suddenly vanish if someone forgot to renew a domain name. "Right now NFTs are built on an absolute house of cards constructed by the people selling them," the software engineer Jonty Wareing recently wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, most of the start-ups and platforms used to sell NFTs today are no more innovative than any random website selling posters. Many of the works being sold as NFTs aren't digital artworks at all; they're just digital pictures of works created in conventional media.

But the situation gets worse. Over the past decade, the blockchain has become a refuge for people who need another place to rest their assets. For global tycoons, it's just an alternative to parking their money in some real estate they would never visit. They can leave money in blockchain-based cryptocurrencies instead, which appreciate in value as long as people buy up bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, and the like faster than the overall supply increases. Within the tech industry, a second group of investors hopes to use blockchains to build new apps, in areas such as social media or e-commerce, that bypass Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and other tech giants. Instead of giving a cut of their revenue to the App Store, for example, these investors want to build new lines of business in which they can keep the whole pie for themselves.

One major challenge is that the blockchain has, at present, approximately zero uses for the typical consumer. Theoretical uses abound, but no ordinary person is choosing a blockchain-based technology over its traditional counterpart. More than a decade after blockchains first caught tech geeks' eye, not a single smartphone app that you use with friends or co-workers relies on that technology. By contrast, when the web was the same age that bitcoin is today, it had half a billion users around the world.

There's only one exception to the lack of interest in blockchain apps today: apps for trading cryptocurrencies themselves. What results is an almost hermetically sealed economy, whose currencies exist only to be traded and become derivatives of themselves. If you squint, it looks like an absurd art project.

After a decade of whiplash-inducing changes in valuation, billions of dollars are now invested in cryptocurrencies, and the people who have made those bets can't cash in their chips anywhere. They can't buy real estate with cryptocurrency. They can't buy yachts with it. So the only rich-person hobby they can partake in with their cryptowealth is buying art. And in this art market, no one is obligated to have any taste or judgment about art itself. If NFT prices suddenly plunge, these investors will try buying polo horses or Davos tickets with cryptocurrencies instead. Think of a kid who's spent the day playing Skee-Ball and now has a whole lot of tickets to spend. Every toy looks enticing. NFTs have become just such a plaything.

The most common criticism of NFTs is that they're wildly environmentally irresponsible. Each transaction or recording of an artwork requires more and more computing power to complete. More computing power means more resources consumed. Many enthusiasts today will respond that "clean" or "green" NFTs are already starting to circulate. But the blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiasts of the past decade have shown that environmental responsibility is less than an afterthought. No evidence suggests that cryptotraders will make more money by embracing green NFTs.

Since the day he and I first teamed up to work on the technology, Kevin McCoy has been the authority on NFTs for me. He is more responsible for the concept than any other person, and he told me recently that he believes green NFTs will succeed. I want to believe him.

But I also look at the history of other gold rushes. People usually choose short-term profit over long-term responsibility. Although I absolutely see lots of artists who care deeply about the impact of their work, I don't see broad support from the cryptorich for abandoning the devastatingly destructive tech that brought them this far. I'm convinced by the artist and coder Everest Pipkin, whose comprehensive overview of the environmental and ethical pitfalls bears this straightforward headline: "HERE IS THE ARTICLE YOU CAN SEND TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY 'BUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES WITH CRYPTOART WILL BE SOLVED SOON, RIGHT?"

In the meantime, the current NFT market is drawing an extraordinary range of grifters and spammers. People are creating NFTs of artists' works without asking permission or even letting the artists know. Today, I run a platform that helps people create apps. Typically, the most popular apps are prosaic-messaging systems for work, or tools for building a website. For the entire first week of March, our most popular offering each day was a Twitter app that let people block lists of users en masse. The app skyrocketed in popularity because artists were using it to block NFT spammers from hijacking their works and monetizing them as NFTs without permission.

Mainstream brands see their own opportunity to capitalize on the hype. Companies selling toilet paper, potato chips, and light beer are tailgating on NFTs' newfound popularity to offer incomprehensible blockchain-themed promotions on social media.

I don't want to let go of the optimistic ideal behind NFTs. McCoy still believes that blockchain technologies can help artists sustain their work. But in my work as a technologist, my optimism has been dashed many times by opportunists who rushed in after a technology took off. In the early days of digital music, the advent of MP3s and new distribution systems was supposed to allow artists to sell directly to fans. In the early days of social media, companies made blogging technologies with the promise that writers would be able to communicate directly with their readers. This pattern played out in industry after industry.

But these changes left creators at the mercy of companies far more powerful, far more ruthless, and far less accountable than the record labels and publishers they'd disrupted. Musicians and writers gained direct access to their audiences, but its cost was a precarity that few could have imagined before their field was disrupted. Artists were the original gig economy.

Our initial NFT demo in 2014 was so well received that McCoy and I were invited to present the tech again a week or two later-this time at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, one of the technology industry's highest-profile conferences. The crowd was a mix of tech geeks and corporate types, all eager to spot the next hot start-up or popular smartphone app. McCoy and I gave a slightly more polished demo of how our proto-NFTs could help artists. Just like at the art museum, we made fun of our own phrase, monetized graphics. This time, nobody in the audience laughed. In the tech world, monetizing innovations is no joke. It's how the industry operates, and this crowd was all business.

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indelible ledger of digital transactions

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The only thing we'd wanted to do was ensure that artists could make some money and have control over their work. Back in May 2014, I was paired up with the artist Kevin McCoy at Seven on Seven, an annual event in New York City designed to spark new ideas by connecting technologists and artists.

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Crypto art can be either an investment tool, or a conceptual inquiry into structures of value and community, or even both, depending on how you approach it.

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Non-fungible tokens are all the rage, but for luxury fashion brands they pose questions - in abundance. Will the crypto-wealthy, who are mostly young and male, be interested in luxury fashion NFTs? What would they look like and would buyers get any utility from them? Would they be brand dilutive? And will the complexity of setting up cryptocurrency wallets be too much of a bother for luxury consumers?

While each new day brings another breathless story on a new non-fungible token (NFT) record sale, the luxury fashion world has remained relatively quiet. But that's about to change. Fashion brands have been studying the wild, wacky world of blockchain and all its creative and business possibilities. Now they are poised to jump in.

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Luxury fashion brands poised to join the NFT party

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Non-fungible tokens are all the rage, but for luxury fashion brands they pose questions - in abundance. Will the crypto-wealthy, who are mostly young and male, be interested in luxury fashion NFTs? What would they look like and would buyers get any utility from them? Would they be brand dilutive?

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Fashion has increasingly been engaging with NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, as gaming and digital fashion have come to the forefront. For its fall 2021 collection, Gucci partnered with the art auction house Christie's on an NFT video called "Aria," which sold for $25,000 in June. Christie's was also where Beeple, the most famous digital artist, sold his piece for $69 million this year . This overnight success of NFTs is now leading Christie's to accept auction bids with Ethereum , the most popular crypto-currency. Other brands have also dipped a toe in the digital pond in varying strategies, eager to take advantage of the boom that drives NFT collections to sell out in minutes.

Below is an overview of the different brand strategies for approaching the NFT space within fashion, looking at individual shifts, how the cryptocurrency carbon emissions are being countered and what's next to come in the space.
For an explanation of key terms in the digital space, look to our explainer at the end of this article. Case Study: Luxury giants Burberry and Louis Vuitton tackle in-game NFTs
For the first time ever, Burberry has worked with a game developer to launch its own NFTs. Working with Mythical Games' Blankos Block Party on a cute shark Blanko that can be purchased, upgraded and sold in-game, the brand moved into the digital space after the success of its own game, B Bounce, launched in 2019. Critically, the Burberry NFT doesn't run on the energy-intensive Proof of Work crypto model like Ethereum, but rather through a private EOSIO blockchain protocol using a Proof of Authority model that is far less energy-intensive.

Focused on discovery, these NFTs open up the fashion world to new digital channels and games that are there to tempt a younger consumer. In a press release, Rod Manley, Burberry's chief marketing officer, noted that, "With this exciting concept, we are able to unlock genuine value for the gaming community by encouraging players to interact with our brand in an environment that celebrates art, design and exploration." Coming from the official Blankos Twitter account, the Burberry NFT drop sold out faster than any other collaboration done by Blankos that preceded it, including the NFT drop with music artist Deadmau5.

Neda Whitney, svp and head of marke ting at Christie's, said, " NFTs prove that in spaces where digital fashion and skins are already a user behavior, the entrance of fashion brands into the conversation is a natural next step. The ability to allow users to not only buy digital items in the fashion space but to also have unique and, oftentimes, '1 of 1' certificates of ownership adds a level of exclusivity that has always worked well within the fashion culture."

As most fashion brands are placing their NFTs inside closed systems, like with Balenciaga and Fortnite , the idea of having a virtual closet that moves across different gaming platforms and digital worlds is still not as widespread. Platforms like Polygon are looking to change that. Luxury house Dolce & Gabbana has created NFTs on the platform, prioritizing the way that its garments can be transferred across many digital "worlds." Joseph Pallant, the founder of the Blockchain for Climate Foundation and an NFT expert, said, ​​"There's going to be a lot of money in the NFT fashion space. Making that a creator-first [concept] and having that blossom into a whole new realm is so much more exciting than getting a Louis Vuitton handbag on some permissioned blockchain that lives within its own walled garden. With items in Polygon, it can live on lots of different metaverses and platforms; you can have it in Decentraland or Cryptovoxels. That interoperability is really important."
Case study: Charitable giving through NFTs at Rebecca Minkoff
Speaking about the partnership with Glossy, Joanna Lambert, president and gm of consumer at Yahoo, said, "The opportunity for fashion in the digital world is massive. Immersive formats will reimagine what the fashion industry looks and feels like for the consumer. We are committed to pushing the boundaries of digital shopability and, through fashion, we were able to explore how AR content strengthens the relationship between designers and their consumers. We look forward to leading creative technology by reimagining the consumer journey and immersing audiences in the things they love, showcasing what is possible as fashion and entertainment evolve. This first of its kind gallery was created to revolutionize the interaction with fashion and art, deepening the connection between the consumer and designer."

"The idea of 3D experiences, and making them as high fidelity as possible, is to then let brands have a presence virtually wherever they want. It could be on their website or it could be through AR glasses. The end goal would be to try on a specific product and to be able to buy it. So if I think about Ferrari and what we did with them, it was about a variety of different things: We started from the creation of the car with a real engine, down to the stitches in the seats, in perfect in high fidelity, then we used that same asset on the web to let consumers configure the car and make it what they wanted. That's direct commerce, in that sense. We then also used it to do virtual production for ads, especially during the Covid pandemic. Finally, we also brought it into Fortnite, so that players could drive it and test it virtually that way. So depending on where you are, there is tons of usability for anything that is 3D created." These widespread applications are part of the reason why brands are getting invested in the digital space. Creating 3D assets doesn't just mean more realistic imagery for its online space, but it also heralds a commercial opportunity for all of a brand's goods in the NFT space.
Will the sustainability issue with NFTs be solved?
However, more and more cryptocurrencies don't operate on the PoW model, choosing to be more sustainable in the blockchain system by going with PoA (proof of authority) or PoS (proof of stake) system instead. Many fashion brands are prioritizing this when it comes to choosing partners to work on their digital collections and NFTs.

The Fabricant, the original NFT creators behind the Iridescence dress that sold for $9500 in 2019, placed its creations on the system created by Dapper Labs that uses the Proof of Stake model. Michaela Larosse, head of creative strategy and communications at The Fabricant said, "It was a very difficult decision to begin to iterate as NFTs. But because it's the future of what we do, and it's very important for creators, regardless of whether they are fashion creators or artists, we felt it was the right decision. It allows the creators to enter this space, giving people complete agency over their creations, allowing them to monetize their work and operate at a global scale without middlemen. Equally, it's a very difficult decision to make right now, because of this extraordinary energy wastefulness that's going on. So Ethereum 2.0 is a big step forward. I believe the reduction in energy when Ethereum flips to the proof of stake mechanism is a completely different way of validating." According to the Digiconomist and the Ethereum creators themselves , the merge to the PoS will use at least 99.95% less energy than the current model, making minting fashion NFTs with the cryptocurrency a real step toward a sustainable digital fashion future.
What's next for brands launching into the metaverse?
The notion of access to the digital space is still difficult for those with traditional fashion backgrounds, making growth and innovation in the space slower than the demand of the industry. For many, the shift to technology takes years to master. After observing the space, The Fabricant are launching a new platform called The Fabricant Studio, where users without 3D technology knowledge can create digital items and mint their own NFTs. Michaela Larosse said, "To create digital fashion, you have to be quite tech-savvy, understand programs like Clo3D and be able to iterate in them. That's a very long timeline to learn that kind of thing. We've tried to come up with a mechanism that allows people to customize and interact with digital garments that have already been created as templates and essentially create their own NFTs." This shift to bring more people into the digital space is a way of breaking down the silos that typically exist in other craft professions, especially in fashion.

In the same way, Epic Games, the founders of Unreal Engine - the system behind Balenciaga's previous game and latest collaboration - have committed $100 million dollars to help creators and game developers in the 3D space. The Fabricant was a recipient of one of these mega grants for a fashion show featuring its designs. Another was Delz Erinle, founder and lead game designer for the from Thrill Digital that combines a virtual world where players compete in-game to win real-life luxury fashion prizes. In the demo, a simply-clad heroine walks into a store where she cycles through a variety of looks that she can buy after competing in combat sequences with other players outside the "store." Talking with the founder, he describes it as the first iteration, hoping to become a full metaverse with growing support. "We're attracting an intersection of people we call 'fashion gamers.' These are people between the ages of 18 or a bit younger to 35, who are interested in fashion and also like to play games. It is a broad community, everyone from millennials and Gen Z to Gen alpha."

These metaverses - huge online worlds with their own currencies, communities and economies - are already starting to come into fruition. , an intergalactic planetary exploration game, already shows the possibility of an alternate gaming universe, where cryptocurrency economies are as real as those created in the real world. Better still, brands like The Fabricant are already getting involved, selling its NFTs before the game is launched this autumn. Cathy Hackl is an industry expert on the metaverse and has been a pioneer in developing and researching the space in her role as c hief metaverse officer and CEO of the Futures Intelligence Group. " We'll see an evolution of volumetric video and NFTs that will not only unlock unique access and experiences, but also take ownership of digital assets to new levels. We're just scratching the surface of what NFTs will be able to unlock for fashion."
The vocabulary of the future:
NFT: A non-fungible token, or a unit of unique data stored on the blockchain system that can be traded and sold. Most digital files can become NFTs, but in the fashion industry, NFTs have mostly been through imagery.

: Different currencies that are used to trade digital items. The most popular are defined by three verification systems: Crypto-currency proof of work like Ethereum, which has come under fire for using large amounts of energy through the mega computers needed to solve mathematical problems; proof of stake, where the person with a corresponding number of network coins verifies blocks; and proof of authority, where the users have to make themselves known to the network. The most popular cryptocurrency is Ethereum, although others also exist that are tailored to specific value environments.

Blockchain: The system that allows NFTs to be verified through a record of transactions across several linked computers. What makes the blockchain unique is that records cannot be altered, making it a perfect system for traceability and transparency.

Skins: Digital garments that exist in-game. Unlike NFTs, skins are rarely transferable through metaverses, but encompass anything that the avatar (online persona) is wearing.

Metaverse: The future of the internet and a shared 3D virtual universe that users can exist in perpetually. The next generation of this online reality will be across many metaverses that all have different characteristics and communities.

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How fashion brands are navigating NFTs and what's next for the metaverse

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Fashion has increasingly been engaging with NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, as gaming and digital fashion have come to the forefront. For its fall 2021 collection, Gucci partnered with the art auction house Christie's on an NFT video called "Aria," which sold for $25,000 in June.

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On 10th September 2021, Karl Lagerfeld NFTs, totalling 777 pieces, priced 77 euros each, sold out in 33.77 seconds. Dropped on THE DEMATERIALISED, a digital fashion marketplace, Chromatik Karl and Ikonik Karl NFTs have quickly become the blueprint for those chasing the NFT dream because they either have a FOMO (fear of missing out) or they understand that the power of digital ownership creates opportunities.

Dismiss or Invest in NFTs

2021 has been the year of NFT fever. With Google searches for NFTs on the rise, the NFT market has seen $2.5 billion in sales in the first half of 2021, compared to the $13.7 million sales of the year before. With the fashion industry attempting to uncover the technology's potential, it comes as no surprise that after making their debut into the virtual world, Karl Lagerfeld has already confirmed that another drop is underway.

As successful as the Karl Lagerfeld NFTs were, it is important that brands first understand that NFTs relate to fashion differently than other industries that are more accustomed to selling digital goods. This is mainly because traditional fashion brands, famously rigid in digital adoption, are finding it hard to let go of physicality. Consequently, those observing this space are usually wondering, what are NFTs, why is everyone rushing to cash in, and what do they mean for an industry that has remained resolutely physical for so long?

NFTs are Non-Fungible Tokens; non-fungible refers to one of a kind, a unique digital asset. More than just a run-of-the-mill crypto coin, NFTs are digital files created as jpg, png, .mov or 3D fashion files before being minted (attached) to a blockchain. As digital assets, NFTs are managed and authenticated via digital ledgers or blockchains, held in digital wallets the same way cryptocurrencies and other tokens are, and they function as valuable items traded within the digital space.

Image courtesy of: UNXD

Like a one-of-a-kind trading card, NFTs cannot be copied or hacked. However, they are not mutually interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. For example, bitcoin is fungible. This means that you can trade one bitcoin for another, and you'll have the same thing. However, when it comes to NFTs, they are non-fungible, which means that when you buy an NFT, instead of receiving a physical object you can wear (and which doubtless has many duplicates in the real world), for example, you will instead get a unique JPG file that can't be replaced with something else.

"NFTs allow files to become assets. They have a unique on-chain identity and a smart contract component that tracks authorship and ownership. Therefore, any virtual environment or Metaverse could potentially integrate them to either be seen or ideally traded," explained Karinna Nobbs, the Co-Founder of aforementioned THE DEMATERIALISED, a digital asset platform powered by the Lukso blockchain.

With NFT technology expected to change the way brands incorporate non-fungible tokens into their design and marketing strategies, the craze has been recognised as a digital revolution responsible for shifting the fashion market in a direction that nobody saw coming. As people are cashing in on NFTs, it's been reported that an eye-watering amount has already been spent on digital handbags like the baby Birkin that sold for more than the physical one and trainers like the virtual ones launched by RTFKT Studios. Although there's an element of blind speculation to their valuations, these are early proof points of the idea that people will pay to stake their claim to previously ephemeral things.

Image courtesy of: Hèrmes.

On this phenomenon, some experts have commented that the interest in fashion NFTs is tied to the fact that we are currently witnessing the first-ever digital fashion being created - something that has an easy analogue in the early stages of any other art form. Imagine owning the first fashion NFT and then finding out in 10-15 years that it is worth ten times more than you paid for it, the same way a piece of art from an emerging creator might be. The potential earning power of NFTs has made the technology very inviting and triggered what might be categorised as a gold rush.

As NFTs continue to open doors to new forms of consumption and production, many more fashion brands are starting to invest in a brand-new business of digital collectables. But how will incorporating NFTs in the revenue model bring radical changes to the Metaverse?

William Quigley, Co-Founder of stablecoin Tether, famously said, "I'm betting that the revenue model for the metaverse is going to be NFTs." The pioneer in cryptocurrency views the Metaverse as "a huge economic force that's going to change people's lives significantly in coming years". But what, exactly, is the Metaverse?

First coined in science fiction, the term Metaverse combines the prefix "meta", meaning beyond, and "universe". On the Metaverse, which has not fully come into existence, Paris-based strategist and inventor Evelyn Mora believes that "we are building something that is a safe extension of our physical existence."

Thrilled that the Metaverse is shattering physical boundaries and constraints, metaverse consultant Cathy Hackl told The Interline that she encourages brands to see the Metaverse as a further convergence of our physical and digital lives. With Augmented Reality's (AR) potential to make fashion NFTs more valuable, Hackl believes, "In some ways, the metaverse is about the internet breaking free from the rectangles in our hands, desks, and walls and being all around us," she explains.

Image courtesy of: The Fabricant

In preparation for the metaverse future, the fashion industry needs to understand that NFTs are all about ownership over digital items, and the Metaverse is simply taking that concept into one or more virtual worlds. Although the Metaverse, as a business model, is not fully developed yet, NFTs are bringing this creative playground to life.

NFT Marketplaces, Unlocking Limitless Possibilities

You cannot talk about NFTs and the Metaverse without acknowledging the number of NFT marketplaces that have recently sprung up-offering users a place where they can buy and sell NFTs. Some of these platforms have caught the attention of investors like billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, music mogul Jay-Z, and Google Ventures, who provide seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to technology companies.

Satisfying the appetite for non-fungible tokens, NFT marketplaces like OpenSea are capitalising on the growing demand for buying and selling NFTs across multiple sectors - from music and art to fashion. Other marketplaces providing a space for creators and designers to sell their work as non-fungible tokens are places like THE DEMATERIALISED, which I mentioned earlier, and LuxFi, a company that has established an ecosystem that enables consumers to buy, sell and invest in luxury assets through NFTs.

Also recognising the potential of NFTs is Neuno, founded by Natalie Johnson. Bridging the gap between the real world and NFTs, Neuno is encouraging the fashion industry to enter a digital utopia where one can own a unique piece of what they call "fashion history".

"I think brands are open to exploring new ways to create new revenue streams and keen to stay relevant for the future generations, and going digital really is the stepping stone to that", said Johnson to Forbes.

The NFT marketplace I find most exciting is Metajuku. It is a virtual mall and the brainchild of Janine Yorio. A fund manager for digital real estate developer Republic Realm, Yorio's Metajuku is located in the Metaverse Decentraland, a virtual space that invites customers to enter storefronts, browse virtual NFT products and make purchases. Besides Decentraland, other online marketplaces are Cryptovoxels, Somnium Space and The Sandbox.

With regulations in this area still evolving, Dylan Hunzeker, an investor at Struck Capital Crypto, is confident that "in the near future, there will be numerous marketplaces for NFTs, in the same way that there are multiple stores for goods and services".

Exclusive Drops Breaking Barriers

A few years ago, the idea of spending real money on virtual clothes seemed far-fetched unless you were part of the gaming world. Now, as NFTs continue to tap into the human desire to own something rare, digital fashion houses like The Fabricant have become the catalyst for normalising the idea of digital clothes after successfully auctioning a unique NFT for $9500.

Image courtesy of: The Fabricant

Still finding its footing, NFT technology has opened the fashion industry to new possibilities through co-creation and collaboration with crypto-native fashion brands. This is a considerable achievement for an industry notorious for being secretive about its work.

Testing the waters are luxury fashion houses with deep pockets like Gucci. The high-end brand released an exclusive drop, a digital version of Gucci's Dionysus bag. Sold on Roblox Corp.'s platform for about $4,115, the bag was worth more than the price of the physical item. In addition, other luxury brands like Burberry and Louis Vuitton have collaborated with Blankos Block Party (Burberry) and Beeple creations (Louis Vuitton) to drop NFTs connected to video games.

More recently, the collaboration between Dolce & Gabbana and the digital marketplace UNXD caught the industry's attention. The Italian luxury brand partnered up to launch the NFT collection called Genesi, which was promoted at Dolce & Gabbana's shows Alta Moda, Alta Sartoria, and Alta Goilleria. However, their strategy was a little different from the other luxury brands. With their first NFT, a digital garment called "Dress from a Dream", D&G decided not to target the younger, crypto-wealthy gaming market; instead, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana wanted to appeal to their established customer base.

Image courtesy of: dolce & Gabbana, with unxd

When you zoom out, you realise it is not only luxury brands flooding the NFT market; the sports industry has also been cutting itself a piece of the pie for a while now. For example, there was a collaboration between Adidas and Decentraland. They partnered up and hosted a virtual fashion exhibition where Adidas' designs were auctioned as NFTs. Also, jumping on the bandwagon is Nike. Combining the use of NFTs with the ability to collect and customise sneakers, they patented the process behind their Crypto Kicks.

Although some of the fashion NFT projects have not held their value or increased in value, Hackl does believe that the tests and prototypes built today will set the foundation for what comes next. So, with the road ahead looking promising for the fashion industry, what is the downside of NFTs?

No Fabric, No Waste, Right?

If I have learnt something, I have learnt this; as exciting as NFTs are right now, powering this new wave of hype does come at a cost. I am not talking about how expensive it can be or how difficult it is to build and host; I am talking about the environmental cost of mining that makes NFTs possible.

For those caught up in the hype, the realisation that NFTs impact the environment may come as a surprise. "Many NFT transactions send a stronger economic signal to the miners which may lead to increased emissions," explained Susanne Köhler, a PhD fellow to the Verge. Köhler researches sustainable blockchain technologies at Denmark's Aalborg University.

cryptocurrency mining operation

Who are miners? When you mint NFT, Miners are responsible for completing specific tasks. These include confirming the NFT as an asset on the blockchain, ensuring that the NFT can be traded or verifiably "owned", securing transactions that verify that the NFT is added to a block and "immortalised" on the chain, and making sure that everyone in the network confirms the block as "correct".

If you are still wondering how? Let me try and simplify it, NFTs are dependent on Ethereum. Ethereum mining consumes about 26.5 terawatt-hours of electricity a year, which, when put into perspective, is a number that can just about rival that of a small country. So can NFTs become leaner and greener? Well, it depends who you ask.

Evelyn Mora's stand on that matter is that although creating, buying and selling does cost data and energy, she believes that it is a problem that is easier to solve than overproduction within the fast fashion industry. There are greener solutions for minting NFTs, such as Palm, a new NFT ecosystem built with Ethereum.

If you ask tech futurist Cathy Hackl if NFTs are bad for the environment, she would argue that not all NFTs and blockchains are the same. Thinking so is an oversimplification. Hackl advises fashion brands to check out 'greener' blockchain options like EOS, Flow, and Hedera.

In the end, just because NFTs have been praised for eliminating some of the fashion industry's polluting practices does not mean that they should not be held accountable. The good news is that the blockchain community not only acknowledges the problem, they are trying to find solutions to lessen NFTs environmental impact.

Image courtesy of: the dematerialised

In my opinion, there are two lessons to take away from this ongoing debate; one to ask yourself is whether the carbon footprint of NFTs is acceptable for what they're worth, and two, always remember that going digital does not necessarily mean full sustainability.

Key Takeaways

NFT fashion isn't about replacing a physical garment with a digital one; instead, it is an opportunity for fashion brands to represent themselves in the digital space and tap into a new commodity market.

Excited to dive into the rabbit hole that is NFTs, Evelyn Mora recommends brands create a digital strategy that explores how they can use digital tools to curate experiences and ultimately connect digital and physical. But one needs to keep in mind that there is no guarantee that NFTs will integrate with all generations, so strategise with your targeted customer in mind.

If your primary concern is the damaging impact of Cryptocurrency mining, seek out cryptocurrencies that don't operate on the PoW (proof of work) model, which is highly energy-intensive to run and has relatively slow throughput. Choose a more sustainable blockchain system like the PoA (proof of authority) or PoS (proof of stake) instead.

As the whole world morphs into a digital existence, I wonder, is the fashion industry ready to imagine a future where the NFT-based economy outgrows the real world? We'll see.

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On 10th September 2021, Karl Lagerfeld NFTs, totalling 777 pieces, priced 77 euros each, sold out in 33.77 seconds. Dropped on THE DEMATERIALISED, a digital fashion marketplace, Chromatik Karl and Ikonik Karl NFTs have quickly become the blueprint for those chasing the NFT dream because they either have a FOMO (fear of missing out) or they understand that the power of digital ownership creates opportunities.

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PARIS, France - January 16: A model walks the runway at Louis Vuitton show during Paris Fashion Week ... [+]
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The principles that govern the luxury fashion industry are no different than other business sectors. Modifications are sufficiently important and complex that the luxury fashion and beauty industry have developed detailed documents to better comprehend the competitive marketplace. Make no bones about it, the raving flames of NFTs have given the fashion world a burning desire for blockchain technology. In this feature, my aim is to show you what luxury fashion is doing with this crypto tech, and what to expect as fashion forges ahead into a tech-savvy future.

Firstly, NFT is an acronym for Non-fungible tokens, a cryptographic asset created through blockchain technology. It allows for the exchange of value through a medium that cannot be replicated. NFT is not the new kid on the block, rather, the digital collectible dates back as far back as 2012. More to the point, this digital asset didn't make a name for itself until 2017, with Crypto Kitties - a digital asset that could be raised like a cat, which was later traded for as much as $140,000.
NFT in Fashion: How it all began:
In recent years, the fashion and beauty industries have gone to great effort to encourage an accurate and unbiased understanding of business modifications to reinforce new terms consistent with the modification in business today. The birth of NFTs proved to be fashion's only hope of getting back on the fast-paced tech train, as it missed its opportunity with E-commerce by far. When e-commerce first arrived on the scene, I remember an abundant number of brands completely uninterested in moving forward with the new platform at the time. The fashion business has since become much more cautious. This year alone, Gucci introduced product offerings such as one of a kind sneakers as an NFT. Even luxury watch brands are promoting NFT auctions within the available platforms to promote on social. This is NFT 2.0 and there is no end in sight.

PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 01: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Kaia Gerber walks the runway during the Givenchy as ... [+]
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In March 2019, an ingenious concept was born into the raving vibe of blockchain technology as it makes its way through major industries such as the Arts & Entertainment industry. The item was the brainchild of a 3 brand community, Dapper Labs, digital couture house, and Johanna Jaskowska, iridescence is a digital outfit that was eventually sold on blockchain for US $9,500, then in May that same year, top luxury brand LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, owner of some of the world's biggest fashion brands such as Fendi, Dior, and Givenchy, became the very first company to leverage blockchain-based tokens as a means of ensuring an item's authenticity.

Joining forces with Microsoft and Consensys (blockchain software company), the Aura platform was established. It is a blockchain system that allows consumers to track the origins and lifecycle of their purchases. Having researched this topic at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a strong argument can be made that this knowledge is considered the most important to consumers in a customer-centric world. Another thing worth mentioning is how these fashion brands are able to protect the integrity of their intellectual property. Top brands leveraging NFTs back up their designs legally. In the words of Wyoming Attorney "The legitimacy of a digital product is as good as its legal backing.
"If having health, home and car legally backed seems obvious, then you should have your other assets as well...that includes NFTS!"
How luxury brands use NFTs to reach high net worth individuals. In today's marketplace, NFTs seem to be the talk of the town. Luxury fashion brands like LVMH can now use these tokens to connect with customers in a unique way, tell their story and reflect their values. Customers in this age and time won't just make a purchase, but rather it has been discovered that 65% of customers are more likely to patronize a brand that connects with them, using a story behind the product. Sustainable fashion and beauty is a strong-driver concerning younger millennials and Gen Z market groups. NFTs make it possible for luxury brands to create priceless, irreplicable experiences for customers which will, in turn, improve brand awareness, engagement and boost sales.

MILAN, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 19: Bella Hadid walks the runway at the Fendi show during the Milan Fashion ... [+]
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An NFT is a great way to connect with ideal customers and create a loyal fan base or buyers. However, getting inclined to the polished experience luxury fashion shoppers expect is no easy task. Although virtual games like Decentraland attempt to create a suitable user experience, it doesn't exactly hit the spot. In the game, players use avatars and can purchase fashion NFTs on the decentraland wearables market. And this doesn't exactly spell Luxury as most shoppers expect.

Nonetheless, this is expected to change soon as emerging companies compete to make NFT fashion better and more desirable. One of such companies is EverestCoin. EverestCoin is a Play-to-Earn gamefi platform that is bringing ideas from Mount Everest into a whole new world of fantasy on the metaverse. The vibe around this trailblazing coin got the attention of crypto influencers like Shiba army and Bagcalls.

In an interview, the Founder, and CEO of EverestCoin said "NFTs are the hot deals today and they'll play an important role in the game we're building on Metaverse. These new arts are a form of expression that ties into the whole DeFi ideology that birthed both the behemoth that the luxury fashion world and the crypto world are today."
The Fashion NFT Marketplace:
An abundant number of luxury brands are still trying to figure things out, while smaller brands have taken the bull by the horns and indulged into the NFT trend with jolts of creativity, selling on NFT marketplaces such as KnowOrigin and Open sea. In fact, at least three times a week I receive NFT pitches from boutique fashion brands. Currently, the best example of an NFT is when it is sold as a twin (digital product) of a physical one. "The winning bidders will receive the corresponding real-life dresses, and both the NFTs and the physical garments are one-of-a-kind", says Clothia CEO Elena Silenok.

"NFTs and interest in digital artwork is completely to the luxury fashion industry's advantage," another comment made by digital designer Nicole Zisman

"Right now, fashion being sold via NFT is fashion as art, and not necessarily fashion as a utility," says Cathy Hackl, CEO of Futures Intelligence Group

Speaking of art, many agree that the uniqueness of NFTs is how they're able to blend quality art with technology. One NFT artist worthy of mention is Michael Osei-Wusu,*Indigo Suave*. A student of film and visual arts at Princeton. Suave founded a production company, ASUAVEPRODUCTIONI in his sophomore year. With loads of visual projects that have done well, Suave is currently working on another planned to come out this September. Over the past few months Suave has been able to create highly successful videos on YouTube "Doge-1: A New Hope ''. It depicts a Shiba dog traveling through space in an attempt to get to the moon. Suave draws this visual to a higher purpose of what dogecoin is about - hope. In other words financial liberty. The artist draws a comparison between being financially stable and being hopeful.

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How The NFT Boom And Luxury Fashion Brands Are Aiming For Success

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The principles that govern the luxury fashion industry are no different than other business sectors. Modifications are sufficiently important and complex that the luxury fashion and beauty industry have developed detailed documents to better comprehend the competitive marketplace. Make no bones about it, the raving flames of NFTs have given the fashion world a burning desire for blockchain technology.

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As the world becomes more digital every day, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have gained raging popularity across the world in just a few months.

The trend has taken over all market spheres and now luxury fashion retailers have hopped onto the bandwagon of tokenizing their products.
But what exactly are NFTs?
NFTs are one-of-a-kind assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but which have no tangible form of their own. Made from a unique string of characters bought and sold using Ethereum and Bitcoin, they authenticate the originality of design and artworks.

While digital currencies are interchangeable (or fungible), NFTs are the opposite because they are irreplaceable.

It is this uniqueness that makes them so valuable, especially in the eyes of collectors.

When asked why the fashion industry should care about NFTs, Ryan Marsh from Quantus Gallery, which works closely with artists in the digital sphere said: "Whether we like to admit it or not, the digital realm is going to become more and more integrated in society and to ourselves.

"On that basis alone, the fashion industry should care about emerging technologies and ways in which they can benefit from it and ways their audience can too."

Marsh said that even from a brand awareness perspective, appealing to the younger generation and staying in public consciousness is incredibly important for businesses. This, he continued, goes hand-in-hand with retailers looking to attract a different type of audience.

"Industries are always looking at ways to maximise growth and evolve and I think NFTs are likely going to stick around for some time," he added.

While popular, can NFTs have a significant impact on the fashion world and have they already changed the industry?

Will King, founder of the beauty brand above and beyond explained that the past two years have seen an "irreversible shift towards the digital world, from meetings to purchasing."

However he stated that while cryptocurrency continues to grow in value, and additions such as metamask wallet browser add-ons create new and intriguing opportunities for all retailers, he said he doesn't predict they will significantly change the industry.

Blockchain Reply UK blockchain architect Abharana Jayadev explained that NFTs from popular luxury brands are getting a lot more attention in the fashion industry lately, while several old brands are making a comeback by creating goods for the Digital Closet.

He added that brands will often try and combine different trending aspects into their products to get customers' attention.

This has already been proven popular as shoppers continue to buy wearable NFTs, using online personas/avatars to wear the items available in apps such as Snapchat.

Asics was cited as the first sportswear brand to move into the NFT space, which has allowed the brand to keep abreast of trends that its consumers are interested in. Meanwhile, Louis Vuitton and Burberry are both launching NFTs in video games and digital products.

At the beginning of the year Gucci released neon-coloured, digital-only trainers that shoppers can only "wear" in photographs for social media using augmented reality.

In the summer, the luxury retailer then chose to step into the world of digital art with its debut NFT, a film inspired by its recent Aria collection, as a part of a newly-unveiled auction.

Blockchain Reply's UK developer Abdul Gaffar called the luxury retailer's move into launching NFT, "a brilliant way to market fashion products."

"The gaming industry has a vast audience and, like film, games can be aspirational - a lot of people are influenced by their interactions with games," he told Retail Gazette.

"The impact NFTs will have on fashion will change the way people view the industry.

"The majority of those investing in fashion NFTs tend to believe they will get a much higher price when they decide to sell because of its uniqueness.

"A lot of brands are now considering giving customers NFTs upon purchase of their limited edition stock."

Gaffar explained that due to the recent hype behind NFTs - and the market climbing rapidly - a lot of people will buy a certain product purely for the NFT behind it.

There's no denying that the Covid-19 pandemic changed the way consumers shop and given the multiple nationwide lockdowns that were put in place last year, the fashion retail landscape has shifted to consumers purchasing more products online.

Generation Z, those born between 1995-2010, have a significant buying impact and, according to new reports, have a spending power of $140 billion annually.

With Gen Z accounting for 2.6 billion individuals worldwide, the future of shopping is heavily influenced by this age group.

Will King cited the recent acquisition of Tiffany by LVMH, and its rapid repositioning to the 'daughters not the mums or grandmas', as an example. The retailer's use of millennial icons Jay-Z & Beyonce, sets a clear precedent that the future of brands lies in 'the young'.

"This new generation has purchasing power from both inheritance, as well as their own newly generated (digital) wealth," explained King.

"In the world of elite e-sports and global gameplay, the digital insertion reinforces the strength of the brands."
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How are NFTs changing the fashion industry?

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As the world becomes more digital every day, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have gained raging popularity across the world in just a few months. The trend has taken over all market spheres and now luxury fashion retailers have hopped onto the bandwagon of tokenizing their products. But what exactly are NFTs?

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A blockchain company bought a $95,000 Banksy artwork, burned it and broadcast it live on Twitter - all part of a process of turning the work into a virtual asset called a non-fungible token, or NFT.

Injective Protocol, the company behind the stunt, bought the screenprint "Morons (White)" from New York's Taglialatella Gallery, then burned it Monday evening. The event, which took place in an undisclosed Brooklyn neighborhood, was live-streamed through the Twitter account BurntBanksy.

Moments later, Injective Protocol employees created a digital representation of the art using blockchain technology on the OpenSea, which recently gained notoriety after Mark Cuban used it to issue his own NFT.

While digital art has recently become popular, this event is the first major instance in which a physical artwork was turned into a unique digital asset, according to Injective Protocol executive Mirza Uddin.

"We view this burning event as an expression of art itself," Uddin said, adding, "We specifically chose a Banksy piece since he has previously shredded one of his own artworks at an auction."

The original print, a black-and-white depiction of an art auction with a mocking message to would-be art buyers, carried Banksy's signature and was authenticated by Pest Control, the only organization authorized to certify Banksy's art. The print was one of an edition of 500.

Representatives from the Taglialatella Gallery confirmed that the print was sold to Injective Protocol in January. CBS News obtained its certificate of authenticity and transaction receipt. According to Injective Protocol, Taglialatella Gallery was not aware the print would be destroyed when it was sold.

Banksy is an anonymous artist and political activist who gained notoriety by creating graffiti, photos and short films that often contain wry social commentary. The artist does not make public statements.

Betting on digital

For Injective Protocol, a three-year-old company that runs a decentralized platform for blockchain transactions, the project is a validation of the blockchain's ability to stand in for physical art assets, Mirza said.

"We entirely recreate the physical piece and input specifications, such as the art version number into the smart contract code, [so] no one can ever alter the digital art in any way," said Mirza. "The physical piece will forever be memorialized in this NFT."

Non-fungible tokens are virtual items that use blockchain technology and smart contracts to assure each item, or asset, is unique and unchangeable. For example, NFTs can be linked to digital photos, videos, virtual trading cards in video games and even digital artwork. While digital items, such as photos, can be copied indefinitely, NFTs cannot, as each is immutably unique, creating scarcity in the virtual assets to which they are linked. NFTs can be transferred or sold, but unlike a dollar bill - of which there are millions of in circulation that are interchangeable and hold equal value to each other- the unique cryptographic signatures of each token, recorded in smart contracts and verified on blockchain, assure that each NFT is an original and cannot be duplicated or divided into smaller parts.

"We believe NFTs hold tremendous promise and blockchain technology can help to further diversify art expression as we have demonstrated with this Banksy burning," Mirza said.

Still, the company is likely to lose money on the Banksy transaction, because the market for NFTs is unproven.

When asked for an estimate of how much the Banksy NFT might be worth, Mirza said "I have no idea."

NFT's have skyrocketed in value in recent weeks. According to Trading Platforms, a site that ranks retail trading sites and currencies, NFT trading volume exceeded $400 million in the past 30 days, with an average of about 17,000 daily active traders. A survey by the site found that NFTs are driving mainstream consumer interest in cryptocurrency.

Full HD video https://t.co/sKAu2AERmJ
- Burnt Banksy (@BurntBanksy) March 3, 2021

"NFTs are valued for their cultural significance and social capital that comes with holding such notable works," according to the report. "Unlike assets like Bitcoin, NFTs offer the ability to capture individuals' attention and onboard them into the blockchain space," it said.

Value or hype?

Not everyone is bullish on NFTs. "As someone who collects physical items like sports memorabilia, I get the allure of ownership and exclusivity," said Drew Olanoff, a writer for TechCrunch. "But the hype around NFTs has been fast and furious," he said.

"There is a lot of 'get in now to get rich fast or be left behind' fandom," said Olanoff. "The potential upside [is] for artists, but I don't see it for consumers yet."

Once the hype slows down, the real value of NFTs will emerge or they'll cool off, Olanoff said. For now, he cautioned potential buyers to avoid getting swept up in the excitement. "These are asset classes, and even if they're new, financial restraint can and should still apply," he said.

Trending News

Dan Patterson

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Blockchain company buys and burns Banksy artwork to turn it into a digital original

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A blockchain company bought a $95,000 Banksy artwork, burned it and broadcast it live on Twitter - all part of a process of turning the work into a virtual asset called a non-fungible token, or NFT. Injective Protocol, the company behind the stunt, bought the screenprint "Morons (White)" from New York's Taglialatella Gallery, then burned it Monday evening.

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Beeple NFT Artwork Sells for $6.6 M. Ahead of Viral Christie’s Auction

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A work by net artist Beeple sold for a record-breaking $6.6 million on Nifty Gateway, a cryptocurrency market for digital art.

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(Image credit: Christie's/Future)

NFTs have taken the worlds of art and gaming by storm. Whether you think they're a speculative fad or a great new possibility for artists, they continue to make the headlines when they sell for millions of dollars.

The longevity of NFTs is still being debated, but they are still selling like hotcakes online. Many are convinced that NFTs are here to stay and with the rise of Facebook's metaverse now seems like as good a time as any to brush up on all things digital, so read on to find out everything you need to know out the elusive NFTs.

From how NFTs work to how to make them, to the controversy around them, to what they actually are, we will cover all the nitty-gritty details of NFTs in this handy guide. We also have plenty of other NFT-related pieces like the best NFT artwork, and how to make and sell an NFT. And if you are hoping to create your own NFTs then make sure you check out our roundup of the best digital art software for creatives to get yourself started.

What are NFTs?

NFT stands for a non-fungible token, which means that hidden in those quirky artworks, there is a totally unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger that uses blockchain technology to establish proof of ownership. NFTs are collectable digital assets that hold value, just like how physical art holds value, so do NFTs.

NFTs are a lot like cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, an NFT is completely unique, and it can't be exchanged like-for-like, which is where non-fungible starts to make sense. The file stores extra information that elevates it above pure currency and brings it into the realm of, well, anything, really.

Any kind of easily reproduced digital file can be stored as an NFT to identify the original copy, like photography, art, music, videos, tweets, and even memes. You can make NFTs from almost anything unique that can be stored digitally and holds value. They're like any other collector's item, like a painting or a vintage action figure, but instead of buying a physical item, you're instead paying for a file and proof that you own the original copy.

How do NFTs work?

The unique identity and ownership of an NFT is verifiable via the blockchain ledger. they were first launched on the Ethereum blockchain, but other blockchains including FLOW and Bitcoin Cash now also support them. Whether the original file is a JPG, MP3, GIF or anything else, the NFT that identifies its ownership can be bought and sold just like any other type of art - and, like with physical art, the price is largely set by market demand.

If you wandered into a gift shop of an art gallery, you'd find a number of replicated prints of famous masterpieces, well there are some NFTs that act the same way. There are parts of the blockchain that are totally valid, but they wouldn't hold the same value as the original.

NFTs will most likely come with a license to the digital asset it points to, but this doesn't automatically confer copyright ownership. The copyright owner may reproduce work and the NFT owner gains no royalties.

Where can I buy NFTs?

Don't go thinking you've hacked the system by right-clicking and saving the image of an NFT. That won't make you a millionaire because your downloaded file won't hold the information that makes it part of the blockchain and identifies the file as the original.

If you do want to look into buying NFTs, they can be bought on a variety of platforms depending on what you want to buy (for example, if you want to buy baseball cards you're best heading to a site like digitaltradingcards, while other marketplaces sell more general pieces). You'll need a wallet specific to the platform you're buying on and you'll need to fill that wallet with cryptocurrency. As the record sale of Beeple's Everydays - The first 5,000 days at Christie's (pictured above) proved, NFTs are hitting more mainstream auction houses, too, so these also are worth watching out for. In case you missed it, that Beeple piece went for $69.3 million.

Because of the high demand for many types of NFT, they are often released as 'drops', much like with events, when batches of tickets are often released at different times). This means a frenzied rush of eager buyers when the drop starts, so you'll need to be registered and have your wallet topped up and ready to spend.

The sites listed below are just some of those that sell NFTs:

NFTs are also making waves as in-game purchases in video games (much to the delight of parents everywhere, we're sure). These assets can be bought and sold by players, and include playable assets like unique swords, skins or avatars.

Who uses NFTs?

(Image credit: Nyan Cat)

NFTs are having a moment among artists, gamers and brands across the spectrum of culture. In fact, it seems every day brings a new player to the NFT marketplace. For artists, stepping into the NFT space adds another possibility for selling art, and provides fans with a way to support it. NFT art ranges from small, quick-to-make GIFs (Rainbow Cat, above, was sold by NyanCat for $690,000) to more ambitious works.

It would be expected that work by well-known artists would fetch big bucks as NFTs, something an anonymous group of 'art enthusiasts' relied upon when they burned an original Banksy in order to increase the value of an NFT. However, some sales are still surprising. The Beeple sale mentioned was not only the biggest NFT art sale, but it was also the third-highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist.

Meanwhile, NFTs are shaking up the concept of in-game purchases in video games. Up until now, any digital assets bought inside a game, still belonged to the game company - with gamers buying them to temporarily use while playing the game. But NFTs mean that the ownership of assets has shifted to the actual buyer. That means that they can be bought and sold across the gaming platform with extra value applied based on who has owned them along the way. Whole games are now being made based entirely around NFTs.

(Image credit: Taco Bell)

NFTs are becoming an attractive revenue stream for brands, and we've seen all kinds of companies jumping on the bandwagon. Taco Bell's 25 taco-themed GIFs and images (you can see one of them above) sold out in just 30 minutes. Each NFT contained a $500 gift card, which may explain their initial popularity, but the TacoCards are now selling on the secondary market for up to $3,500 (and to clarify that no longer includes the gift card!)

Even the US basketball league NBA has got involved. NBA Top Shot is a way of selling digital collectables in the form of trading cards embedded with iconic basketball moments. With a plan to add virtual jewellery, accessories and clothing that can be used across social media, the NBA is aiming to expand this revenue stream as far as it can go.

It also turns out that even tweets can hold value. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sold the first-ever tweet (sent by him to announce he was setting up his account) for a staggering $2,915,835.47. Musicians are also selling the rights and originals of their work, as well as short videos to clips of their music, and you can even buy digital real estate and 3D assets like furniture as NFTs.

In fact, a 'digital home' sold for an eyewatering $500,000. 'Mars House' (see above), designed by Toronto artist Krista Kim, was described by digital art marketplace SuperRare as the 'first digital house in the world'. Created with the help of an architect and video game software, the owner will be able to explore the mansion on Mars using virtual reality and can sunbathe outside the house (in the Mars atmosphere).

Why are NFTs controversial?

There's a lot of money being made in the NFT market, but you'll have heard there's also great controversy, not least due to the impact on climate. The creation of blockchain assets, NFTs included, uses a horrendous amount of computing power - and so a huge amount of energy. Some are worried about the very real impact the craze could have on the environment.

CryptoArt.wtf, a site set up to calculate the carbon footprint of NFTs (which is now offline), calculated that a piece of NFT art named 'Coronavirus' consumed an incredible 192 kWh in its creation. That's equivalent to one European Union resident's entire energy consumption for two weeks. Was it a particularly big piece? It's estimated that a 'simple' NFT GIF can create the same consumption.

Interviewed here, @beeple says, "I can assure you that moving forward that all of my drops will not just be carbon neutral but carbon NEGATIVE." I'm sure there are plenty of people who would hold him to that. https://t.co/C2UdhE89QW March 10, 2021

Artists can help, by making efforts to create carbon-neutral artwork (Beeple has promised to do this going forward as the above tweet explains). But the problem goes deeper, because of the way blockchain works.

Ethereum, Bitcoin and the like are built on a 'proof-of-work' system (like a complex series of puzzles) to keep the financial records of users secure. And this system uses an incredible amount of energy. In fact, Ethereum alone uses about the same amount of energy as the entire country of Libya. Ouch.

ArtStation was so worried about the impact on the climate that it recently backtracked on its decision to sell NFTs after a massive backlash. And Sega was recently at the centre of a Twitter storm after it announced its intention to start creating NFTs (after all, Sonic was all about the environment, right?). There are organisations trying to make a difference. Check out what Blockchain for Climate is doing to improve the situation here.

Many voices in the art and design community are also angry that NFTs are changing hands for such astronomical sums of money, and it's often not going to the artist. Given that NFTs were originally created as a way of giving control by asserting digital ownership, the idea that they are becoming increasingly elitist is causing tension. The buy-in fees are prohibitive for many, and the cost to actually buy one means the marketplace is becoming something of a playground for the super-rich.

Can anyone make an NFT?

If you've got this far, you might be wondering: can I make an NFT? Well, one would assume so given that when Trevor Andrew drew this Gucci Ghost (above), he managed to sell it for $3,600. Technically, anyone can create a piece of art, turn it into an NFT on the blockchain (a process called 'minting') and put it up for sale on a marketplace of choice. You can even attach a commission to the file, which will pay you every time someone buys the piece through a resale.

Much like when buying NFTs, you need to have a wallet set up, and it needs to be stuffed full of cryptocurrency. It's this requirement for money upfront that causes the complications.

The hidden fees can be prohibitively astronomical, with sites charging a 'gas' fee for every sale (the price for the energy it takes to complete the transaction), alongside a fee for selling and buying. You also need to take into account conversion fees and fluctuations in price depending on the time of day. All this means that the fees can often add up to a lot more than the price you get for selling the NFT.

Whether or not NFTs are here to stay, for the moment they are making some people money and they're creating new possibilities for digital art. We would, however, advise caution and careful consideration of which platforms to use. See our guide to how to make and sell NFTs for more information. And if you want to get creating, make sure you've got one of the most powerful laptops available or even one of these top drawing tablets.
Read more:

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Confused about NFTs? Here's what you need to know

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(Image credit: Christie's/Future) NFTs have taken the worlds of art and gaming by storm. Whether you think they're a speculative fad or a great new possibility for artists, they continue to make the headlines when they sell for millions of dollars. The longevity of NFTs is still being debated, but they are still selling like hotcakes online.

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Co-Author: FionaHe | Investment Manager at A&T Capital

(Special thanks to our Intern Jeffrey Chen and Steven Zhu for the support)

Illustration: Jinhwa Jang

P art 1: NFT has the potential to become the most scalable blockchain application

Whether it is for a game item or a piece of art, NFT can help achieve the leap from the physical to the digital world. From the works of digital artists to the highlights of professional athletes to the collectibles in video games, more and more attention is drawn to different applications of NFTs. For example, Christie's began to auction NFT artworks; the NBA cooperated with Dapper Labs to launch Top Shot; Disney and even Taco Bell are launching peripheral collectibles in NFT. Nevertheless, the issuance of NFT is not limited to professionals with a large fan base. Nowadays, average users are gradually getting more access to mint various forms of data files into permissionless and programmable NFTs and distribute them on platforms to be discovered and freely traded.
The hype surrounding NFT has been hard to ignore
With NBA Top Shot launching public beta in August last year, under the influence of its franchise, NFT market quickly broke out. According to CoinGecko, as of June 10, 2021, the total market value of NFT has exceeded 17 billion dollars, which is about 1% of the market value of the entire crypto market. Before then, the market was almost negligible. According to Nonfungible.com, NFT market transactions in the first quarter of 2021 reached their all-time high, and in the first week of May, recorded a volume of 173 million dollars. Although the current NFT market is showing a slight decline, it remains a track that cannot be ignored by investors.

The following picture introduces several noteworthy transactions in the NFT market. The first two were created by graphic designer Beeple, which recorded the highest and fourth-highest sales in market history. The creator of the third piece, Stay Free, was Edward Snowden himself, who subsequently donated all proceeds from the auction to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The fourth piece, NYAN CAT, is taken from a video that swept the Internet ten years ago and then derived into projects such as video games and cryptos, symbolizing the vitality of streaming media in the digital world.

NFT is fueling the digitalization trend triggered by COVID-19
Covid has forced traditional business models to shift from offline to online, and people are unprecedently engaging with the Internet. For example, art collections and auctions have always revolved around offline exhibitions, physical delivery, etc. The empowerment of blockchain may profoundly change the industry in the following ways: a) Traceability and transparency on the chain, authenticity verification, and resolution of trust issues；b) Non-physical delivery, which noticeably grew during the pandemic. For instance, sports cards can be directly and conveniently stored in digital wallets；c) Improvement on the liquidity of transactions on collectibles；d) Lower barriers of entry, making it easier for creators and their works to be discovered by investors.

As a bridging tool between the physical and digital world, NFT's core lies in tokenizing the unique values of certain assets. Before then, there was only FT, which only represented undifferentiated value, and NFT further expanded the types and usages of digital assets on blockchain.

While the pandemic is driving traditional industries to become more online and digital, we believe that NFTs can empower these industries to become more efficient.

P art 2: We are experiencing the transition from creating NFT, using NFT, to socializing with NFT

Looking back at NFT's market history, each bull market was led by its representative project. In the first bull market, Colored Coin (BitcoinX) caught people's eyes. Colored Coins can mark a variety of unique assets, similar to putting a line on a dollar bill with the message "can be exchanged for 1 share of Tesla". This attempt allowed more people to understand the possibilities of blockchain other than ledger transactions. By the second bull market, the outbreak of CryptoKitties caused serious congestion on Ethereum, marking NFT's first entrance to the public view. At that time, CryptoKitties had nearly 20,000 users and recorded 40 million dollars worth of transactions. The most expensive kitten, "Dragon," was sold for 600 ETH (equivalent to 170,000 US dollars at the time). In the third bull run that we had just gone through, NBA Top Shot was the leading project that attracted users outside of the crypto space, and it now has more than 1 million registered accounts[1] and total sales of more than 600 million U.S. dollars. From the past vicissitudes of bulls and bears, NFT has gone from 0 to 17 billion in market value, and its market focus shifted from the creation of NFT (Colored Bitcoin, crypto cat) to the usage of NFT (NBA Top Shot).

We believe that the next break-out point for NFTs will be social platforms.
Firstly, NFT-based social platforms provide an outlet for NFT owners to display and show off. Whether you are a speculator or an investor, there is a need for a platform that provides collection display and price discovery.In our current social environment, Proof of Passion provides a channel for people to exchange perspectives and share inspirations. These proofs can be a work of art, a pair of limited-edition sneakers, or a record; In 1961, Keith Richards reunited with Mick Jagger at a train station in Dartford, England. Keith recognized the Chess record that Jagger was carrying, and the two started talking on the station platform. A few years later, the two of them formed the Rolling Stones, and together became the most influential pair of music creators in our music history. Nowadays, people are accustomed to listening to music on streaming platforms and keeping their collections of artworks at home. The arrival of NFT makes it easier for them to handily present and share these valuable proofs of passion in a digital form.

Secondly, NFT's incentives can further stimulate the originality of social media content, encouraging creators to provide more authentic and valuable content and ultimately enhance the value of the platform itself.We compare several commonly used social methods based on their essential elements. The elements are as follows:

Number of contacts

Speed and frequency of connections(velocity)

Unique and authentic content

Thirdly, social platforms provide content creators with free promotion and sharing channels, lower barriers for creators to display and establish more direct and transparent communication between creators and fans.For creators, they can publish project-related NFTs on social platforms to raise funds, and these "project tokens" will also appreciate along with the portfolio. On top of that, the tokens can be used as proof of passion for patrons and collectors to display on social platforms. Instagram and Twitter are the representatives of the current centralized social platforms. They encourage users to convey and share information using simple text and images while reaching sub-communities with the help of their precise algorithms to recommend content tailored towards their passion. As for NFT social, we believe that the opportunity lies in the platform that allows users to share and engage with proof of passion easily, provides accurate NFT content and price discovery, and properly designs community tokens.

Right now, the utility of NFT is only a piece of the puzzle, and we can only grasp the actual value of NFTs until we put every piece together. As of June 10, 10 of the top 15 NFT projects are on the Ethereum network based on total historical sales[2]. In terms of trading platforms, OpenSea has the highest historical total transaction volume of more than $500 million[3]. In terms of applications, there are only two projects with a total transaction volume of more than 100 million dollars: the star project NBA Top Shot on Flow, which ranks first in historical transaction volume, reached 600 million dollars; The other is CryptoPunks, which has a total transaction volume of more than $300 million. It can be concluded that the currently successful NFT projects mainly focus on two sectors: resources-intensive with solid IPs (real-world assets) and encrypted, unique collectibles (on-chain assets).

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NFT will define the final form of future cultural output

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Co-Author: FionaHe | Investment Manager at A&T Capital (Special thanks to our Intern Jeffrey Chen and Steven Zhu for the support) P art 1: NFT has the potential to become the most scalable blockchain application Whether it is for a game item or a piece of art, NFT can help achieve the leap from the physical to the digital world.

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Hype is over: How NFTs and art will benefit from each other moving forward

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Nonfungible tokens — beyond the NFT hype — can bring effectiveness, transparency and new models of ownership, funding and grants to the art industry.

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A Painting or an NFT of It: Which Will Be More Valuable?

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The new technology is raising questions about the risks and rewards of investing in digital art forms.

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CryptoKitties is a blockchain game on Ethereum developed by Canadian studio Dapper Labs that allows players to purchase, collect, breed and sell virtual cats. It is one of the earliest attempts to deploy blockchain technology for recreation and leisure. The game's popularity in December 2017 congested the Ethereum network, causing it to reach an all-time high in the number of transactions and slowing it down significantly.

Players purchase, breed and trade virtual cats that have different visual features of varying levels of rarity. Players must purchase Ether cryptocurrency to join the game, and spend it to perform each breeding and trade action within the game.

The virtual cats are breedable and carry a unique number and 256 bit distinct genome with DNA and different attributes (cattributes) that can be passed to offspring. Several traits can be passed down from the parents to the offspring. There are a total of 12 'cattributes' for any cat, including pattern, mouth shape, fur, eye shape, base color, accent color, highlight color, eye color, and optional wild, environment, 'purrstige' and 'secret'. Other features like cool down times are not passed down but are instead a function of the 'generation' of the offspring, which is one more than the 'generation' of the highest 'generation' attribute.

A CryptoKitty does not have a permanently assigned gender. While they can only engage in one breeding session at one time, each cat is able to act as either matron or sire. There is a 'cooldown' time that indicates how soon the cat can breed again, which goes up with the number of breeds, capped at one week.

The virtual cats are static images that can only be purchased, bred and sold. The game has no goal.

CryptoKitties operates on Ethereum's underlying blockchain network. Each CryptoKitty is a non-fungible token (NFT). Each is unique and owned by the user, validated through the blockchain, and its value can appreciate or depreciate based on the market. CryptoKitties cannot be replicated and cannot be transferred without the user's permission even by the game developers. Users can interact with their CryptoKitties, having the ability to buy, sell, and sire (breed) them. However, the CryptoKitty art is not on the blockchain and is instead owned by Axiom Zen. The company released some of the art under a new 'Nifty' license that lets players use the image of their CryptoKitty in a limited way. A test version of CryptoKitties was unveiled at ETH Waterloo on October 19, 2017, an Ethereum hackathon. As of December 2, 2017, Genesis, the first high selling cat was sold for ETH246.9255 (~ US$ 117,712) on that day.

On March 20, 2018, it was announced that CryptoKitties would be spun off into its own company, Dapper Labs, and raised $12 million from several top venture capital firms and angel investors. The investment round was led by New York based Union Square Ventures and San Francisco based Andreessen Horowitz.

On May 12, 2018, a CryptoKitty was sold for $140,000. In May 2018, CryptoKitties launched their first celebrity-branded CryptoKitty with Stephen Curry, the NBA player. As part of the partnership, Curry was given three CryptoKitties with special imagery, the first of which he put up for auction. The company later suspended the auction, claiming that Stephen Curry was not as involved as they initially thought.[citation needed ] The company was later sued for trade secret theft over the Stephen Curry collectibles. The court ruled in the company's favour, stating that "[t]he evidence demonstrates that Defendant, not Plaintiff, developed the idea to license digital collectibles using the likeness of celebrities first...".

In October 2018, CryptoKitties reached the milestone of 1 million cats being bred with a volume of 3.2 million transactions on its smart contracts. In November 2018, Dapper Labs, which was spun out of Axiom Zen as the developer of CryptoKitties, raised an additional $15 million in a venture round led by Venrock. The company doubled its valuation in this round.

In 2018, CryptoKitties was used by the German museum ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe to showcase blockchain technology.

A CryptoKitty's ownership is tracked via a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Each CryptoKitty is represented as a non-fungible token using the ERC-721 token standard on Ethereum. Generation 0 CryptoKitties were sold to players in an auction at the rate of one every 15 minutes (672 per week) for one year. New CryptoKitties are created by breeding existing CryptoKitties.

Based on the limited number of cats going into circulation and their limited genomes, there is a limit of around 4 billion total cats that can be bred. Each cat has a distinct visual appearance ("phenotype") determined by its immutable genes ("genotype") stored in the smart contract. Because cats are tokens on a blockchain, they can be bought, sold, or transferred digitally, with strong guarantees of ownership.

Axiom Zen developed the game. Until November 2018, Axiom Zen intended to continually release a new CryptoKitty every 15 minutes, with the rest of supply determined by breeding of CryptoKitties. CryptoKitty owners may put them up for sale via an auction for a price set in Ether (ETH). They could also put them up for sire, where another player can pay to breed with a specific CryptoKitty.

Shortly after launch, there were concerns that CryptoKitties was crowding out other businesses that use the Ethereum platform. The game caused an increase in pending transactions on Ethereum, and at one point accounted for about 25% of network traffic on Ethereum. Ethereum miners increased the gas limit in response to CryptoKitties, which allowed for more data per block and increasing transactions per second. A variety of similar websites such as Etheremon, Ethertulips, and CryptoBots, were also created. Marketplace sites such as OpenSea and RareBits were created as a response. Due to delays on the Ethereum network, CryptoKitties announced plans to switch to the FLOW blockchain.

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CryptoKitties is a blockchain game on Ethereum developed by Canadian studio Dapper Labs that allows players to purchase, collect, breed and sell virtual cats. It is one of the earliest attempts to deploy blockchain technology for recreation and leisure.

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CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum

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A new craze for “crypto-collectibles” slows down transactions on the popular blockchain.

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Steph Curry, LaMelo Ball, & the Bored Ape NFT Takeover

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Steph Curry, Josh Hart, LaMelo Ball, Dez Bryant, and Daryl Morey are all aboard the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collectibles bandwagon, which now heads to Sotheby’s for a major auction event.

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If you've been keeping an eye on the tech news lately, you've probably heard of terms such as Bitcoin, blockchain, and more recently, NFTs. Stories of multi-million dollar auctions for the digital assets have attracted the attention of artists and collectors alike. But what are NFTs? And how do they work?

Here, we explore the basics of non-fungible tokens, the technology behind them, and their uses in everyday life. We also look at some of the skills and knowledge you'll need to get involved with them.

What are NFTs? Key terms explained

First things first, let's take a look at some of the key terms and definitions we'll be using. To understand what NFTs are and how they work, we need to have some broader context:

NFT

NFT stands for non-fungible token. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot at this stage; the word 'fungible' isn't a particularly common one. However, it essentially means that something is interchangeable.

For example, in economics, money is a fungible asset. It has units and can be easily interchanged (such as swapping a £20 for two £10s) without losing or gaining value. Fungible assets also include things such as gold, cryptocurrency, and shares.

A non-fungible asset, on the other hand, is a one-off; a painting, a house, or a trading card, for example. Although a painting, for example, can be copied or photographed, the original is still the original, and the replicas don't have the same value.

Digital asset

Put simply, a digital asset is anything that exists in a digital format and has a right to use (a right to copy, duplicate, reproduce, modify and otherwise use). So, for example, things such as documents, audio or visual content, images, and other similar digital data are all considered digital assets.

Blockchain

Unlike a regular database, a blockchain is a series of data 'blocks' that are linked together. This chain of blocks creates a shared digital ledger (collection of data) that records the activity and information within the chain.

Each blockchain ledger is stored globally across thousands of different servers. This means that anyone on the network can see (and verify) everyone else's entries. This peer-to-peer and distributed ledger technology, as it's known, means that it's nearly impossible to falsify or tamper with data within a block.

So, to use IBM's definition, blockchain is a shared, immutable (permanent and unalterable) ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets.

When we think about NFTs, they are created on a blockchain and can never be taken into a separate blockchain ecosystem. It will exist on that blockchain and prove the authenticity of the good that you've purchased.

Non-fungible tokens vs cryptocurrency

The key difference goes back to cryptocurrency being fungible. You can exchange a Bitcoin for another Bitcoin, for example. However, you cannot do so for an NFT. A non-fungible token is tied to one particular digital asset and cannot be replaced.

Why do NFTs have value?

As we've mentioned already, a non-fungible token is essentially a certificate of ownership for a digital asset. The value comes from the collectibility of that asset, as well as its potential future sale value. NFTs can be sold and traded.

Again, using art is a great example of the value of NFTs. In February 2021, digital artist Beeple sold the NFT for their Everydays - The First 5000 Days artwork for a staggering $69.3 million through Christie's auction house.

Examples of NFT sales

It's not just NFT art that sells well. There have been several notable sales of NFTs in recent months, although this has given rise to the speculation that there is a market bubble at the moment (more on that later).

Some examples of NFT sales include:

The first Tweet. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, sold the NFT for his first Tweet for $2.9 million

The 'Nyan Cat' GIF. The NFT for the colourful GIF sold for 300 Ether (a cryptocurrency), worth around $561,000 at the time.

The 'Charlie Bit Me' Video. The popular video of a baby biting his brother's finger was viewed over 800 million times on YouTube. The NFT for the video sold for around £500,000.

What can non-fungible tokens be used for?

Many people question whether there are use cases for NFTs. However, although the concept is in its infancy, several potential uses have already emerged. We've picked out some of the most notable ones below:

Tickets

One of the uses of NFTs discussed in our open step is that of event tickets. The argument is that if tickets are created using a non-fungible token, if you make an exchange of that ticket, there is a record of that exchange.

As a result, there is no chance of someone scalping tickets, stealing tickets, or trying to use counterfeit tickets. This is because there is no chance of replacing the token on a blockchain associated with that ticket.

Fashion

Similarly, a non-fungible token could show crucial data about the origins of an item, such as the materials used, where they were sourced from, and how far the item has travelled. As issues around fashion and sustainability become more pressing, this could help people make more ethical decisions.

Collectables

We've kind of touched on this point already. People have always enjoyed collecting memorabilia, trinkets, and other similar items. NFTs provide a way of ensuring authenticity, a kind of digital signature or stamp of approval.

Gaming

How to create an NFT

If you're a budding digital artist, you might be interested in creating NFTs for your work. Luckily, there are several platforms available that can help you get started. On the whole, the process is fairly simple, and the various platforms will guide you through the process.

However, there are a few things you'll need to know before you'll get started:

NFTs are based on and supported by a particular blockchain. The most popular one for non-fungible tokens is currently the Ethereum blockchain.

You'll need to have a cryptocurrency wallet, complete with cryptocurrency. The most widely used one is currently ether (ETH).

You can create and sell your digital assets on an NFT marketplace. The OpenSea platform is a popular, Ethereum-based platform.

The pros and cons of NFTs

So, non-fungible tokens are clearly popular right now. But what are the positives and negatives of NFTs? We've outlined some potential pros and cons below:

Pros of NFTs

Some of the advantages of NFTs that are often stated include:

They give artists ownership over digital assets. When content creators create a digital asset, an NFT gives them the chance to not only show authenticity but to then profit from their work. With things like memes that are widely circulated, this could mean a significant income stream for the creator.

They're unique and collectable. Many people enjoy the excitement that comes with collecting something that's unique or rare. NFTs provide an extra layer of legitimacy to collectable content, particularly in the form of digital assets.

They're immutable. Because non-fungible tokens are blockchain-based, they can never be altered, erased, or replaced. Again, when proving the origin or authenticity of digital content, this is a valuable quality.

They can include smart contracts. Smart contracts are another feature of blockchain technology that are quite intriguing. Essentially, they can store instructions that are executed when certain conditions are met. As such, an NFT with a smart contract could give artists a percentage of the profit when the NFT is sold in future.

Cons of NFTs

Of course, as with every new technology, there are some potential downsides. The disadvantages of NFTs include:

It's a speculative market. The big question remains as to whether there's any true value in NFTs. Are they a long-term investment? Or simply a passing fad? It's hard to tell. Currently, the only value is based on the emotive quality of NFTs.

Digital assets can be copied. Just because someone owns the NFT of a digital asset doesn't mean that copies of it don't exist. Art can be copied and pasted, GIFs reposted thousands of times, and videos posted on various websites. Just because you own the NFT doesn't mean you control the asset - you simply have a token of authenticity.

Environmental costs. A lot has been said about the environmental impacts of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as Ether and Bitcoin. It takes a lot of computing power to enter records onto a blockchain. There is a big question as to whether assets based on blockchain are sustainable.

They can be stolen. Although the technology behind NFTs is relatively secure, many of the exchanges and platforms aren't. As such, there have been several reports of stolen NFTs after cyber security breaches .

Are non-fungible tokens the future?

Hopefully, you now have an understanding of what NFTs are and how they work. We've seen that there are several potential applications for non-fungible tokens in the real world, but are they a technology of the future?

It's hard to say whether NFTs will be widely used over the years to come. Clearly, there is a huge interest in them at the moment, as well as several potential benefits. However, the technology is in its relative infancy, and there are numerous challenges to overcome.

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What are NFTs, and how do they work? - FutureLearn

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If you've been keeping an eye on the tech news lately, you've probably heard of terms such as Bitcoin, blockchain, and more recently, NFTs. Stories of multi-million dollar auctions for the digital assets have attracted the attention of artists and collectors alike. But what are NFTs? And how do they work?

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Interest in virtual fashion has exploded during the coronavirus pandemic as people explore ways of dressing their online avatars, according to digital fashion designer Amber Jae Slooten.

"We got huge interest," said Slooten, co-founder of The Fabricant, a virtual fashion house based in Amsterdam. "I've never dressed so many people in my life".

Slooten said that digital fashion allowed people to act out their fantasies online.

"How do we want to represent ourselves within the virtual space?" she asked. "If we can be anything, will we still want to be ourselves?"

The rising interest in virtual outfits echoes the growing popularity of images depicting fantasy landscapes that "offer a chance to wonder and escape", according to visualisation artists.

"Given the global situation, the desire for escapism is at an all-time high," interior designer and creative director Charlotte Taylor told Dezeen earlier this summer.

Slooten spoke to Dezeen during a live panel discussion held as part of London Craft Week. The discussion, called Textile Intelligence, featured Slooten alongside Seetal Solanki, founding director of London studio Ma-tt-er, plus multimedia artist Lauren Godfrey and textile artist Celia Pym.

The Fabricant, which Slooten describes as "the world's first digital fashion house," designs garments that only exist digitally.

Created painstakingly with 3D modelling software, the bespoke items are designed to drape and move as if they were real. Customers' avatars can "wear" the items on social media platforms, gaming environments and virtual worlds.

Ying Gao's "chameleon-like" autonomous dresses react to their surroundings

"We create clothes that only exist in a digital space and never exist in the physical world," Slooten explained, adding that virtual fashion allows consumers to avoid the waste and pollution associated with traditional fashion.

"We try to create a new fashion narrative for the 21st century because we really believe that we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and see if our vanity really needs to harm the planet in this way."

Previously, The Fabricant's garments were made to order. But in April, the studio launched the beta version of a new platform called Leela, which allows people to download a range of ready-to-wear items for their online personas.

"There were about 10,000 people that actually use the app to wear these clothes, which to us was completely crazy," said Slooten. "People were able to create their own avatars and wear our clothes for the first time."

Virtual fashion comes naturally to the younger generation, Slooten said, since they are comfortable with the idea of having parallel real-world and online identities.

"I'm a millennial," she said. "I grew up with digital and physical at the same time. But the generation below us doesn't even see the difference any more between physical and real."

People adopt different personalities for different digital platforms, each requiring different dress codes, Slooten said.

"Your digital identities are actually looking different everywhere," said Slooten. "For instance, your Instagram profile might be very different from your LinkedIn profile."

The Fabricant was launched in 2018 by Kerry Murphy and Slooten, who studied at Amsterdam Fashion Institute and became the first-ever fashion student to graduate with an entirely digital collection.

"I'm educated as a traditional fashion designer," she said. "I learned everything at my school; how to sew how to make patterns. [But] I got really sick of all the material that I was using. The physicality of things is something that I never really enjoyed."

Wearers can update political messages on Carlings' augmented-reality T-shirt

"The physicality made me sick, because of all the materials that we were wasting," she explained. "I felt like a huge responsibility for the future of the industry, which I which is why I started questioning physicality altogether."

"And then after I graduated, there were absolutely no jobs in that subject," Slooten added. "And it made me realise that I needed to create it."

The Fabricant's first virtual collection was launched with a digital show with virtual scenery and models, pioneering a format that has now been adopted by many brands due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

"We didn't have to ship any collection, we didn't have to hire any photographers, we didn't need any models," Slooten said. "We didn't even need to fly to the desert to photograph it".

Last year, the Fabricant made history when a virtual dress was auctioned for the first time, selling for $9,500.

"The new owner wore it on her Facebook and on her Instagram," said Slooten.

In future, Slooten believes that real-world fashion will become increasingly technological and sustainable, featuring smart materials that act as a second skin and are able to monitor the body.

"I feel like the future lies in materials that are smart and that are able to grow with us or even grow on us," Slooten explained, adding that the physical world will allow people to exhibit "a more sober expression of who we are".

Parallel to this, virtual fashion will offer people ways of being more expressive.

"And then within the digital world, we can go completely crazy. We can wear a dress made of water or have lights everywhere and change your textile according to your mood."

Eventually, technology could make the digital and the physical worlds indistinguishable, Slooten believes, with garments offering haptic feedback so that virtual reality becomes similar to the real world.

"And this opens up even a more philosophical question," Slooten adds. "Is it even a reality? Because if the virtual world feels like, looks like, and behaves like reality, how do we know it's virtual?"

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Virtual fashion will allow people to "go completely crazy"

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Interest in virtual fashion has exploded during the coronavirus pandemic as people explore ways of dressing their avatars for online environments, according to digital fashion designer Amber Jae Slooten.

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The future of self-expression: What is digital fashion? by Amber Jae Slooten of The Fabricant

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The future of self-expression: What is digital fashion? by Amber Jae Slooten of The Fabricant With this article, we begin a series of interviews with fashion […]