The easiest way to understand NFT’s is to think of them as digital collectables.
NFT’s are typically digital images or movie clips (or other “digital assets” such as audio files) that can be bought and sold and traded or gifted just like old fashioned trading cards or other collector’s items.
Importantly, NFT’s are designed to be permanent. (NFT’s are created by writing on blockchains, which are electronic records that are usually distributed among many different computers, which can make NFT’s very robust).
But perhaps the key feature of NFT’s is that NFT’s have owners. NFT ownership rules can be very complex but generally an NFT is owned by one person at a time. If you own NFT’s, you keep them in a digital wallet (more about this below).
NFT’s are exciting to many people because, for the first time, individual people can own a digital asset, like an image, in a digital wallet.
People are interested in NFT’s for many reasons but a main reason is ownership.
For the first time, ownership of a digital asset (like an image or a movie clip or sound file) can be established so you can electronically own that one instance of digital media.
Note that there may be other NFT’s of the same image or movie clip, just like there may be other examples of a given old fashioned trading card, but, with an NFT, but, again, you can electronically own that one instance of digital media.
Some artists and collectors have made much money creating and selling NFT’s. Others have simply enjoyed building a collection that they may hold or use to trade with friends.
If you are interested at all in NFT’s, a good way to get started is just to create several and see them show up in your wallet (a wallet is created automatically for you if use NFT Forge). Once you have a few NFT’s in your wallet, you can keep or trade or sell them just like you would any collectable item.
To create an NFT with NFT Forge, you first need to decide what file you would like to use to make your NFT (usually an image that you own), then click the CREATE AN NFT button on the home page and simply follow the directions.
When you follow the directions, you’ll have an account created (if you didn’t have one before), you’ll be asked some basic questions (like a public title and description for your NFT), you’ll need to upload the image you want to use to create your NFT, then you go through the checkout process and then wait for a few moments while your NFT is created (“minted”).
Congratulations! You’ve created an NFT!
NFT’s are designed to be permanent, and they are as permanent as much as engineers can make them. NFT’s are created on blockchains, which, at a high level, are electronic records that are designed to be very difficult to destroy and are usually robustly shared across many different distributed computers. Will NFT’s be as permanent as some other famous human engineering creations such as Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China? Only time will tell, but every NFT you create is something that you should presume you can’t ever erase and will be permanent.
Yes! Your NFT’s will be public.
NFT’s are created by recording information on a public blockchain (a type of electronic record that is usually distributed among many different computers). NFT’s are therefore public. Any title or description information you give when you created your NFT will also be public.
However, your personal information (such as your email) will not be shared (unless of course you decide for any reason to put this information in your public NFT description.)
When you mint one or more NFT’s, they are automatically stored in your digital wallet. You access your wallet from your NFT Forge account (click on “My NFT’s) and you use this to view and manage your NFT’s.
If you want to sell or gift or otherwise transfer an NFT that you own to another user, you can use the transfer button that is available for each of your NFT’s.
NOTE: the user you are transferring it to will need to have their own wallet (on the Polygon network, which is a common NFT network and the network that NFT Forge uses), and you will need to ask the destination user for their wallet address. Their wallet address will be a long code that is a sequence of 32 numbers and characters that starts with “0x”.
WARNING: transferring an NFT to someone else is a one way process that can not be reversed. Make sure you want to transfer your NFT before you do this!
If you want to accept an NFT from another user, you will need to give them your wallet address. NOTE: this capability will be added to NFT Forge in late Sept 2022.
None! However, if you are curious, NFT Forge mints and stores your NFT’s on the Polygon network, a popular blockchain for NFT’s.
If you want to see the address of your wallet on NFT Forge so that you can accept an NFT from someone else, click on “My NFT’s” to get to your wallet, then click “My Wallet Address” to see your wallet address. NOTE: this feature will be available in late Sept 2022.
NFT’s are a new technology and, while there are many many fans of NFT’s, there is still much to be worked out and no one can say for certain where everything will go.
Some people have made a lot of money with NFT’s. Some people have lost a lot of money. If you want to participate in the world of NFT’s,
NFT Forge is here to help non technical people just get started with NFT’s. If you want to become a true expert in the world of NFT’s or if you want to build a really big collection, you must do a lot more research on your own.
NFT’s, and blockchains (the technology that allows NFT’s to be created) are a large subject that many people have written about and there is much to read online, of course.
Wikipedia is not a bad place to start.
You can read more about the blockchain, the technological basis of NFT’s here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain
You can read more about NFT’s, their history, some NFT success stories and some potential issues and controversies with NFT’s here:
