A few months back I decided to take the plunge into the world of NFTs, specifically to learn more about them.
You see, I had read a thousand and one rants about how terrible NFTs are — with many articles declaring the mere concept of NFTs to be slightly worse than puppy murder. At the same time, I’d also read many articles discussing the relative merits of NFTs and how they could shape the selling of both digital and physical goods going forward.
But, the reality is… I simply did not understand NFTs well enough to actually cover them (let alone pass judgement upon them).
So I did what any journalist should do… I got my hands dirty in order to properly talk about the topic.
I created some NFTs (based on my existing comics) and put them up for sale on an NFT marketplace. Then I bought a couple NFTs. Then I created a few more NFTs to see if it was a viable system for fundraising for open source projects.
And, in between, I managed to make fun of NFTs. Because… why not? I tend to make fun of just about everything, whether I like the thing or not.
Now, a few months later, I have a pretty clear understanding of how NFTs currently work… and I have some thoughts.
NFTs are not ready for Primetime
While many people have had some obvious success buying and selling NFTs… the overall process is cumbersome and, to be frank, annoying.
As an example:
One of the largest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea, recommends people make use of the Polygon network. Along with a cryptocurrency called “Polygon wrapped Etherium”. This has a few benefits (including less energy usage and less up front transaction fees).
However.
Let’s say you sold an NFT using the recommended “Polygon wrapped Etherium”. You now have some amount of said crypto.
How do you do anything with that crypto currency?
Well, the short answer is… you can’t. At least, not directly. And not in any real way.
You first need to “convert” it to “non-wrapped” crypto. A process which — besides not being clear or well documented (in any way that would make it accessible to the vast majority of computer literate people) — costs crypto in an entirely different format (in this case a crypto currency known as “Matic”).
Which means in order to withdraw funds you earn by selling NFTs… you need to purchase more crypto (of an obscure type that most people don’t even talk about) to pay for the transaction.
The process is cumbersome, time consuming, annoying, and oddly expensive.
That’s assuming the average person can even figure out how to do it in the first place (it is not an obvious or intuitive process, to say the least).
But using “Polygon” and “Wrapped Etherium” is not the only way to go. You can also use regular “Etherium” which avoids the whole problem I just mentioned.
Unfortunately… when using regular Etherium there is a barrier to entry. And not a small one.
When I first looked into “minting” a new NFT… the cost, for me, to create it was over $800 USD. Not joking. In order to sell an NFT (which I planned to sell for, say, 10 or 20 bucks) I would have to pay an upfront minting / mining fee of close to a thousand dollars.
Note: That mining fee? It fluctuates wildly from one moment to the next. I kept an eye on it for a while and saw the price for the initial minting of an NFT swing between $300 and $900.
Is that absolute insanity? Yes. Yes it is.
Now, to be clear: I have no qualms with needing to pay money to do something. If something has value, I should be willing to pay for it. But a system that asks for a thousand dollars, up front, before you can sell artwork that you created and distributed as a digital image? That’s patently nuts.
Expensive to start using (prohibitively so for many). Cumbersome. Erratic. Frustrating to use.
These problems alone render NFTs almost completely useless for the average person (whether looking to buy or sell).
There are good points to NFTs
As I covered previously, NFTs do have upsides. They could be an excellent way to support artists. I love the idea of being able to buy and trade artwork from your favorite painter / photographer / digital artist (as a way of directly supporting their work).
Unfortunately the issues with NFTs render them useless to all but a select few with:
Significant disposable income.
Significant disposable time.
Significant disposable patience.
Significant disposable sanity.
The end of my NFT journey
At least until the NFT industry does some significant work to improve their systems and processes… I think this is the end of my journey with NFTs.
I did manage to sell a few NFTs. And, while I have been unable to find any reasonable way to withdraw the funds which I earned (they are trapped in Wrapped Etherium limbo land… sitting, useless, in my wallet)… I am going to go ahead and donate what the proceeds would be for them to a few open source projects.
Which means, in the end, I’ll take a small loss on my experimentation with NFTs. But, in exchange, I’ll have gained a better understanding of the various NFT systems and — ultimately — created a good excuse for me to toss a few bucks towards open source projects that are deserving of support.
Because supporting open source projects is a good thing.
Will I ever come back to using NFTs? Who knows. It really depends on if the major NFT marketplaces can fix their issues and improve their systems to the point of being usable for the masses.
The original NFTs I published will remain in place. I simply won’t be adding any new ones any time soon. Heck. That might make them more valuable for those that picked them up. Who knows! The NFT world is crazy!
Now you have to explain how to use the Brave crypto wallet.