Times Of Swaziland: NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS A SOURCE OF INCOME NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS A SOURCE OF INCOME ================================================================================ Tessa Nxumalo on 14/07/2022 08:32:00 MBABANE- Move over Bitcoin, welcome Non Fungible Tokens! Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a new way to make money by artists and the public. NFTs are currently taking the digital art and collectibles world by storm. Digital artists are seeing their lives change, thanks to huge sales from a new crypto-audience. NFTs tokens are used to represent ownership of unique items namely; art, collectibles and real estate. Every NFT is unique to its user name and can only have one official owner. The beauty of the NFTs is that they are digitally unique. Advantages Every NFT must have one owner whois of public knowledge and easy for anyone to identify. The other advantages of this platform are; * Content creators can sell their work anywhere and can access the global market. * Creators can retain ownership rights over their own work, and claim resale royalties directly. * One can use digital artwork as collateral in a decentralised loan. Its secured by the Ethereum block chain, which means no one, can modify the record of ownership or copy and paste a new NFT into existence. In laymen’s terms, Ethereum is a technology that is home to digital money, global payments and applications. According to research done by this publication NFTs and Ethereum, will helpsolve some of the problems that exist on the internet today. As we have moved to the digital space, there is a need to replicate the properties of physical items like scarcity, uniqueness, and proof of ownership. Digital items often work in the context of their product. For example you cannot re-sell an iTunes mp3 that you have purchased, nor can you exchange one company’s loyalty points for another platform’s credit even if there is a market for it. The industry has built a booming digital community which serves as a way for creators to earn money online. The advantage of this platform is that anyone can use it, all you need is internet. Mandla Luphondvo, who is Head Strategy and Communications at The Central Bank of Eswatini, when reached for comment said “In the past few months, we have briefly interacted with a few artists who have interest in converting their works of art, drawings or paintings that have intrinsic value as determined by the artists. The value of such assets could also be influenced by public perception of the asset, hence some drawings would be more expensive than others, depending on how the artists and their works are perceived by the public.” encourage ‘‘He continued to say “However this is not the space we work as the Central Bank of Eswatini. We encourage Emaswati to conduct extensive research and thoroughly evaluate their risk appetite before investing or transacting in different kinds of assets.” When reached for comment, the CEO of the National Council of Arts and Culture, Stanley Dlamini said “It is time that artists take advantage of the digital space. The world has moved into a digital age and I believe there is ample opportunity here for our artists to be seen by a worldwide audience.” When reached for comment, Sisimile Mndzebele known as Hani G said “NFTs are the future, in the digital space, they are going to be another platform to create revenue. Every company with a digital presence will have to adopt and have NFTs just like they have Facebook or Instagram. Everything is going digital. Right now a lot of people have not understood the whole concept of it as yet though.”