For several years, many people have been getting involved in the cryptocurrency industry by trading or buying graphics cards, hard drives, solid-state drives, or even laptops to mine crypto. Today, people can get involved in the cryptocurrency world through non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
NFT
An NFT is blockchain-based means of claiming ownership of a unique digital asset. An NFT is given a unique digital signature, effectively preventing it from being replicated. This is done as the NFT is created on a particular blockchain, thus earning its special identifying codes.
The NFT’s value is primarily in the eye of the beholder and is mainly dependent on nostalgia and the fact that people can own a particular piece of digital art. Even if there are multiple copies of an image online, no one can say that they own it unless they bought an NFT of it. Because the NFT is unique, the one-of-a-kind NFT suddenly has value mainly because it is now scarce.
People get involved in the cryptocurrency world through NFTs, thanks to their creation involving cryptocurrency. Written below is the steps to create an NFT:
- Select a blockchain to issue the NFT on
- Find a digital wallet that supports the blockchain
- Purchase enough cryptocurrency to create the NFT on the selected blockchain
- Connect the digital wallet and upload the media to a compatible NFT marketplace
While the NFT is not a currency in itself, people can buy, sell, and trade NFTs and they are stored in people’s digital wallets. The only difference between traditional cryptocurrency and NFTs is that cryptocurrency like bitcoin has the same value as another bitcoin, but this is not the case for non-fungible tokens.
All About Digital
Because NFTs are created on a specific blockchain, the NFT can only be stored in compatible digital wallets and traded in specific marketplaces. If anyone wants to buy an NBA Top Shot NFT, they will first need to create an NBA Top Shot account, open a Dapper Labs digital wallet, and buy it using USDC stablecoin or a different supported cryptocurrency.
Both cryptocurrencies and NFTs are stored in their compatible digital wallets and are currently the target of hackers and fraudsters today. Some of them use commonly used applications like illegal KMS activators to active their copy of Windows 10 and Microsoft Office to deliver crypto-stealing malware to a user’s device, while others exploit the weak knowledge-based authentication practices that most people use. People can keep their digital wallets secure from cybercriminals by sticking to legitimate software keys to activate their software and using FIDO2 authentication practices to secure their accounts.
When people secure their digital wallets with passwordless authentication solutions, they can effectively secure their digital assets and enjoy real time fraud prevention. An unsecured digital wallet is a goldmine for cybercriminals. People will risk their NFT collections getting stolen when relying on passwords to secure their wallets, like how Todd Kramer’s collection of NFTs was stolen from him and resold to the market.
To know more about what NFTs are and how people can protect them, see LoginID’s article here.
