F.A.Q.

NFT means non-fungible token.

Each NFT is a unique, one-of-a-kind digital item, stored on blockchains.

You can see NFTs as digital certificates: thanks to the blockchain, it’s possible to prove who owns a given NFT at any moment in time and trace the history of prior ownership.

Because NFT ownership is easy to certify and transfer, we can use NFTs to create markets in a variety of different assets.

Blockchain is a public-facing digital ledger, developed as a transaction record database distributed, validated and maintained around the world by a network of computers.

Instead of a single central authority, a large community oversees the records, and no individual person or entity has control over them, making the records unforgeable.

Thanks to the decentralized nature of blockchain, the ownership and transactions of NFTs are non-falsifiable, and for this reason a previously unthinkable digital asset market was born for the first time.

Non-fungible means that something cannot be interchanged or replaced by another equivalent token.

A bitcoin is perfectly fungible — trade one for another bitcoin, and you’ll have exactly the same thing. Instead, a one-of-a-kind artwork, like a painting, is non-fungible.

As non-fungible tokens stored on blockchains, NFTs are characterized by:

• Uniqueness: NFTs are unique in their character, and no two NFTs are the same
• Digitally Scarcity: the quantity available can be fully controlled thanks to the blockchain infrastructure, making NFTs valuable assets
• Certainty of Ownership: NFTs are stored in the blockchain network, making it possible to prove digital asset’s ownership
• Transparency: all transactions and changes of ownership are fully trackable in the blockchain
• Indivisibility: NFTs cannot be split into smaller denominations.

NFTs are digital certificates that represent assets, and therefore the transaction of an NFT on the blockchain allows the transaction of the underlying asset.

The assets can belong to the most diverse categories: digital art, digital collectables, equipment in a video game, virtual land, music, membership in a club, tickets for digital or physical events, ownership of physical goods or assets, and more.

Many global brands, such as Coca-Cola, Adidas, Mercedes-Benz, Gucci, McDonalds and more, have recently discovered and demonstrated several advantages of NFTs in their business and marketing strategy.

Among these advantages:

• new revenue streams thanks to the initial sales of NFTs and to the royalties applied on any following reselling among users
•  enrich the customer’s experience in meaningful and creative ways
•  reach new customers segments
•  create awareness and interest for products and services
•  develop innovative marketing and promotional initiatives
•  bridge online and offline marketing activities
•  build brand loyalty and advocacy among the customers
•  reinforce the brand identity
•  increase the engagement on social media channels.

As The Harvard Business Review explains:

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that NFTs are a passing fad.

The really interesting thing about NFTs is the tech they run on, which reveals their broader promise as a vehicle by which brands bypass the platform-centric marketing world of Web2 and reclaim ownership of their digital consumer relationships in the upcoming Web3.”

According to the last BNP Paribas – L’Atelier report, the NFT market capitalization jumped from $ 372 million in 2020 to $ 16.9 billion in 2021.

And ‘NFT’ was chosen Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for 2021. Not bad for a term which, just 12 months ago, was only used by a handful of crypto enthusiasts across the world.

Beyond the hype and the outstanding market trend, the buzz around NFTs makes sense: NFTs represent a real innovation.

As the Harvard Business Review explains:

“NFTs have fundamentally changed the market for digital assets.

Historically there was no way to separate the owner of a digital item from someone who just saved a copy to their desktop.

Markets cannot operate without clear property rights […] NFTs solve this problem […] in doing so, they make it possible to build markets around new types of transactions.“

Ethereum is a decentralised, programmable blockchain platform. Its native currency is the Ether or ETH.

Miners are computers running software connecting them to the network, using their time and calculation power to process transactions on blockchain.

Miners are rewarded for the work performed and for the energy consumption with fees.

Miners are rewarded with fees for each blockchain transaction or action.

“Gas” is the fee you pay when you make transactions (for example, you sell or buy an NFT) and prices fluctuate according to network congestion.

In other words, gas fees are payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions on the blockchain.

Algorand is an alternative blockchain platform to Ethereum, and is among the most decentralized, sustainable and secure blockchain infrastructures in the world.

Compared to other blockchain platforms, it is a truly eco-friendly platform.

In the Bitcoin blockchain, every single transaction consumes 930 kWh/txn. On Ethereum, energy consumption is smaller: about 70 kWh/txn.

On Algorand this consumption is reduced to only 0.000008 kWh/txn.

As if to say that it takes 8,750,000 transactions on Algorand to consume the same energy as a single transaction on Ethereum.

This is why Algorand is called “the green blockchain”.

Web3 is referred to a new idea of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology, which incorporates concepts such as decentralization and token-based economics.

We all remember Web1: the first World Wide Web in which users were just passive consumers of contents.

With Web2, characterized by the spread of social networks, users became active content creators.

Web3 is a vision for the next evolution of the internet: users not only will use and create contents but will also own things (i.e. assets) in the digital world.

Clearly, NFTs will play a fundamental role in Web3, because of their ability to concretely allow this epochal change.

As a concept, a metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection: a form of parallel universe where we can live our virtual lives.

It that can be accessed digitally via a screen (computer, mobile, etc.) or via headsets integrated with AR (Augmented Reality) or VR (Virtual Reality) technologies.

In most cases, a metaverse appears as a 3D virtual world in which we can live immersive experiences such as gaming, shopping or even working.

It can also open up parallel economy possibilities: sale of digital items (clothes, accessories, 3D objects, etc.) for our avatars through NFTs, or even traditional e-commerce of physical products and services for our daily real life.