Over the past couple of years and definitely in the past 12 months, blockchain has been running the news cycle. From Bitcoin to Dogecoin, people couldn’t get enough of the relatively new technology. Then something known as an NFT or Non-Fungible Token hit the market. Stories broke out about people selling their simple pixel art for millions of dollars. The crazy thing was the buyer usually only had a digital version of the item, and there was no physical item. So what is NFT crypto and how does it work?

What is an NFT

NFT’s come in all shapes in sizes as songs, gifs, and even a digital house. NFT’s were first created in 2015 using the Ethereum blockchain. The use of the Ethereum blockchain is important as it allows anyone in the blockchain – that is, owners of an Ethereum based token – to verify all transactions. This is all done automatically and makes it extremely hard to create a fake token as every owner has an independent record of the blockchain.

This makes NFT’s extremely valuable as there will only ever be one version of the token. People can create a copy of the token quite easily, but they are quickly outed as fraudulent when crosschecked with the blockchain records.

One of the biggest benefits and why many artists and musicians are interested in technology is that each time that the token is sold, the original minter receives a cut of the sale price.

How to Buy NFT Tokens

There are tons of NFT markets now, but the most popular are OpenSea, SuperRare, and Raible. OpenSea is the biggest of these and allows you to buy, sell, collect, and show off your NFT’s in a virtual gallery.

To actually buy the token, you first need to convert some cash to Ethereum and add it to a wallet if you haven’t already. This is because NFT’s are normally run on the Ethereum blockchain.

Our Favorite NFT Projects

KicksGuru

KickGuru’s very own NFT project is going live soon!  Be sure to check out our OpenSea collectin in the coming months for official Kicks Guru NFTs.

glitchKICKS

glitchKICKS is one of our favorite shoe-related NFT GIFs and features various shoes rotating and “glitching” every rotation. These can be bought on OpenSea and sell for an average of .08 ETH or about $2,500 around the time of this article.

Rare Shoe

These static images feature classic shoes such as Jordans as statues carved out of stone or Jade or even gold. Each NFT is usually 1 of a collection, usually around 5-10. Found on Rarible these can sell for up to 2.3 ETH or about $10,000 but feature tokens for much less.

CryptoKickers

CryptoKickers features static images of classic shoes that have been stylized in a 3D 8-bit art style. These can be found on Open Sea as well and sell for more than 42 ETH or around $125,000, although many of them are a fraction of this price.

Show Them Off

One of the coolest things about NFT’s is how you can show them off. While the market is already full of ways to show off your freshly minted NFT’s. The most popular of these is buying a digital frame to show off your token. The nice thing about this is that you have the added advantage of being able to cycle through your NFT’s with a single frame. If you have a 3D NFT art piece, you can even buy some frames that present it as a hologram.

Another option is making your NFT your digital device’s background. You can display it as a live image – meaning it will move if it is an NFT with movement. With phones, this is pretty simple. For iOS NFT wallpapers, you simply go into settings and then wallpaper, live background, and crop the gif to size if needed, and voila you have an NFT live wallpaper. For desktops and laptops live NFT wallpapers take a bit more work. These usually require a specific app to allow the asset to play.