A new development on Steem-Engine, the side chain on the Steem blockchain is NFT’s or non-fungible Tokens. Tokenization is a growing segment of both the legacy or existing global financial system and the emerging blockchain based financial system, which is much smaller then the existing legacy system. The existing global financial system utilizes Tokens to enable and provide the security for Apple-pay and Google-pay. NFT’s or non-fungible Tokens are a major tool in the shift towards mass adoption of blockchain based financial systems because they allow the secure, trust less, smart contract based digital trade of both virtual and physical assets. This is the big promise of the blockchain, to remove the cost, delays and sometimes necessary but frequently annoying rules of the middleman from trade. They also allow individuals, businesses and organizations to securely store sensitive information digitally and control access to it with 23 place alphanumeric passwords generated by computer and resistant to current computer based hacking.
NFT’s are a completely different type of token from Bitcoin, Steem, or any other Altcoin. Those type of Tokens are technically known as fungible tokens. Unlike those cryptocurrencies, NFTs allow each individual token to be unique. This is accomplished by means of special data properties that are attached to each token. The values of the data properties can vary from token to token, making each one different from all the others.
Splinterlands cards are a perfect example of an NFT. The data properties for Splinterlands cards are the card type, rarity, level, edition (Alpha, Beta, Promo, Reward, or Untamed), and whether the card is gold foil or not. If you want to sell one of those cards, if matters very much if your selling a common card or a rare card. The details of the data properties distinguish the cards from each other. NFTs are a very useful way to manage valuable components in games, but this is just a small fraction of their total capabilities. NFTs can represent virtual things in games, but also actual things of value in the physical world. I suggest you stop and think how trading millions of dollars for Bitcoin makes it possible for you to move your money from New York to Tokyo in seconds, versus the time, expense and logistical challenges involved in actually moving a million dollars In cash from New York to Tokyo. In the case of U.S. Dollars and Bitcoin, all the dollars are the same and all the Bitcoin are the same, they are fungible or interchangeable. But other physical assets like rare coins, antiques, real estate property deed are unique physical items. In order to move these items in a virtual system like the internet, they need digital or virtual representations as unique as they are, and this is where non-fungible Tokens have their use.Each NFT is unique.
So now imagine, that instead of exchanging U.S.Dollars for Bitcoin, transferring your Bitcoin from New York to Tokyo and then exchanging your Bitcoin for Japanese Yen to move your money in seconds, you move the deed for your New York City Commercial Office Building from New York City to Tokyo in second, by converting your physical “deed” to a non-fungible Token and then send your non-fungible Token, the virtual representation of your deed to Tokyo in seconds and the buyer of your New York City Commercial Office Building sends you one million USD in Bitcoin. Imagine that you do this on a decentralized exchange, which in addition to being licensed to exchange various types of fiat for Cryptocurrency and one cryptocurrency for another, but this exchange also creates non-fungible Tokens to enable and facilitate the sale and purchase of valuable physical assets through the purchase, sale and transmission of their virtual representation. Then imagine that this process is completed in a trustless fashion through computers and smart contracts. If you can visualize this, and understand it, you have seen the future of digital commerce.
This is huge because it eliminates the cost, delays and annoying rules of the middleman in Commerce. In order to grasp how huge this is, the company Walmart is public ally traded, as such it releases certain financial statements each quarter. In the first quarter of 2019, Walmart paid 2.3 million dollars in Swift Fees. Swift fees are the charges incurred every time a person swipes their debit card or credit card to buy good from Walmart. In every transaction their is a buyer and a seller. The buyer can see the goods they want to buy, the seller can’t see inside the buyers bank account. But swift can and guarantees the buyer gets paid. Swift is a wonderful system which has enabled trade to flourish. But smart contracts and the blockchain can be faster and cheaper. But they require the digitization of physical assets. Which was not possible until non-fungible Tokens were invented.
The possibilities for transactions is huge. This is all happening on the Steem Blockchain. If your not involved with Steem you should ask yourself how? And make it happen.
Stay thirsty for knowledge my friends.
✍️ written by Shortsegments
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