FAQ

The authenticity of digital art can be impossible to prove. That’s where NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, step in, creating a chain of ownership that is publicly viewable and unable to be amended. Find out more about how NFT art works, and what steps you need to follow to create your own.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have become to the art world what Bitcoin is to the financial markets – a valuable new toy greeted with excitement by some and scepticism by others.
Pieces of NFT art can change hands for thousands or millions of pounds. They have even been sold at Christie’s, one of the world’s most renowned art auction houses.
Yet, since NFTs mainly represent digital assets, it can be difficult to get your head around what owning an NFT artwork actually means.
Below we answer the question of what NFT art is and how you can create your own.

NFT art meaning
Previously, any copy of a digital artwork would be just as valuable – or valueless – as the next. In theory, NFTs have changed this.
NFT art can be anything – a video, an image, a song, or even something else entirely. When it comes to NFTs, the art matters less than its non-fungible packaging.
When you buy a piece of NFT art, you are buying the certificate of ownership and authenticity of the artwork in question.
This certificate will contain a series of specific elements that denote its uniqueness and record of ownership, found in its identification code and metadata. It is what makes non-fungible tokens non-fungible.
An NFT can only ever have one owner at a time, the proof of which is built into the NFT and is easily and publicly verifiable.
A clear record of ownership will then be created, and extended, every time the NFT art is sold on in the future. This means it can be easy to trace the history, and therefore the authenticity, of the art that has been minted as an NFT.
From the perspective of the creator, meanwhile, it allows them to give a digital artwork, which previously had no tangible value and could be freely distributed, a price tag and chain of ownership. Even if said artwork remains freely distributed online.
 

What can you do with NFT art?

 

Let’s say someone minted, i.e. created, an NFT of a picture of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. If you bought that NFT, you wouldn't own the Mona Lisa. That would still be hanging in the Louvre.
Nor would you own the image file of the painting, in the sense that you cannot stop it appearing elsewhere like you would a physical piece of art.
You also wouldn’t own the copyright. While some NFTs may include the copyright of the original artwork, it isn’t automatically conferred on to the buyer with every NFT purchase.
This means you wouldn’t be allowed to reproduce and sell whatever was contained within the NFT. You could only sell the NFT itself. The same would normally be true of physical art.
What you would have in our Mona Lisa example would be the certificate of authenticity and ownership of this specific digital representation of the painting. And because of how NFTs work, no one else could question that record of ownership.
You could then sell this NFT at a later day, potentially for more (or less) money than you originally bought it.