A digital-only artwork has sold at Christie's auction house for an eye-watering $69m (£50m) - but the winning bidder will not receive a sculpture, painting or even a print. Instead, they get a unique digital token known as an NFT. “Non-fungible token” means a crypto asset that cannot be altered or reproduced. You can think of these tokens as the digital equivalent of artwork in a private collection. Each piece of art in the collection is unique and valued differently. 

Where Bitcoin was hailed as the digital answer to currency, NFTs are now being touted as the digital answer to collectables. Non-fungible tokens are becoming some of the most profitable blockchain-based experiments in history. High-profile influencers, like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, have recently made the news by auctioning off NFTs.

Like pieces of art, an NFT can be sold for money or cryptocurrency. However, the token’s asset transfer is recorded in the blockchain just like cryptocurrency. This establishes who currently owns it. Each NFT is tied to a digital (or in some cases, physical) asset of the original owner. Technically, anything in digital form can be turned into an NFT. Famous tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram pictures, and more can be turned into NFTs and sold by anyone. With the NFT market recording sales of $2 BILLION in the first quarter of 2021, there is no better reason to include it as week 9 of our 10 week build a business challenge.