Name: Why are people collecting NFTs? - 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2022-02-20T16:45:14.000Z
Duration: 6 min 20 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

People collect all kinds of things for a hobby,

from stamps and coins to comics and football

I used to have a big collection of Pokémon

cards but I have no idea where they are now.

Well maybe you should start looking for them

because all kinds of collectables – that’s objects

that people want to collect – are selling for

big money on the internet. It’s all part of a new

tech craze called non-fungible tokens, or NFTs for short.

Basically NTFs are unique, one-of-kind items

that can be bought and sold like any physical

object but only exist in the digital world.

‘Tokens’ can be thought of as certificates

of ownership for these virtual possessions.

Hmmm, OK. I understand the ‘token’ part

If something is ‘fungible’ it can be interchanged,

like money for example. With money you can swap

a £10 note for two £5 notes and it will have the same value.

So, something non-fungible cannot be interchanged

with something else. Is that because it has

unique like the Mona Lisa. You can take a photo

of the painting or buy a copy of it, but there will

I can see that the Mona Lisa is one-of-a-kind

and extremely valuable, but it’s not for sale on the internet!

True, but lots of other things are, from signed

celebrity artwork to virtual football cards.

collectors want something no-one else has,

And the value of NFTs is going up and up?

Massively. A digital sticker of French footballer,

Kylian Mbappé, recently sold for £25,000!

Which reminds me of my quiz question, Sam.

In June 2021, Sir Tim Berners-Lee sold the

original source code he used to invent the

World Wide Web as an NFT at a charity auction.

did the source code eventually sell for? Was it:

If you’re asking me how much the internet

sold for, I’d say c) 5.4 billion dollars.

OK, Sam, we’ll find out later if that’s right.

any money from the World Wide Web, insisting

that his invention should be free for everyone.

But the world of NFTs is controversial and

not everyone thinks Sir Tim should be getting involved.

That’s certainly the view of Shona Ghosh,

technology editor at the ‘The Insider’ website,

as she told BBC World Service programme, Tech Tent:

I think there’s a balance to be struck between

exploring new technologies and Sir Tim Berners-Lee

is an amazing figure but NFTs are a wild west.

Not everything associated with NFTs are rogue,

no rules controlling what can be sold and

for how much, so Shona describes them as a wild west.

there are no laws or controls, like the early

history of the western part of the United States.

She also calls some things about NFTs rogue -

behaving differently from what’s normal or expected,

Love them or hate them, there are strong opinions

on both sides of the NFT debate, as Rory Cellan-Jones,

presenter of BBC World Service’s Tech Tent, explains:

which has promised to put a value on digital artefacts.

To others they’re little more than a dubious

the environment because of the way the tokens are created.

Some people are suspicious of the large amounts

of money collectors are willing to pay, comparing

NFTs to pyramid schemes - business tricks or scams

But for others NFTs are a legitimate and useful way

to put a price on rare digital artefacts –

that are produced and stored as electronic versions.

Items like, for example, the original source

did Sir Tim Berners-Lee raise for charity

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Why are people collecting NFTs? - 6 Minute English

eventually

situation

debate

physical