This goofy-looking gif of a cat flying in the sky spraying rainbow as it dashes along was sold for $590,000 which is equivalent to ₹4,32,45,731.50. It is part of a growing interest in digital assets known as non-fungible tokens or NFTs. Now you might be thinking what are these new form of money minting assets and why are people willing to pay such large amount of money to buy digital assets which are readily available on the internet for free. To understand this we need to look into NFTs.

NFTs stands for Non-fungible tokens, non-fungible means you can not exchange it for another thing of equal value. For example ₹100 notes can be exchanged for two ₹50 notes or five ₹20 notes. One Kg mangos can be swapped for another Kg of mangos. These things are fungible. Were as an NFT is one of a kind. The token refers to a unit of currency on the blockchain. 

Still, you might be confused as to what is being traded in the transaction. When you buy an NFT you are purchasing a kind of barcode, almost a certificate of authenticity that serves as proof that a version of this digital asset is uniquely yours, and of course you gain the ultimate bragging rights, the feeling of achievement and a certain level of clout.

When you own an NFT it does not mean that you will get the copyright or trademark of the item. Also do not consider that there will not be endless other versions of this thing floating all over the internet. There will be because it's the internet.

Now you might be wondering why don't people just search for digital assets on the internet, right-click on the same and save them on their desktops for free. You can certainly do that but like all other collectibles, whether it's postal stamps, ancient coins, rare books or fine arts having an original is special. Take the example of the Mona Lisa you can download the image from the web, print it on a canvas, and say that you have a painting of the Mona Lisa in your living room but everyone knows that there is only one painting of the Mona Lisa which is at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

By now you might have an idea what NFTs are and you might be thinking of making some lucrative investments in these new assets so that you can make some money. 

So how can one buy NFT? simply go to any NFT marketplaces like the popular ones Known Origin, Rarible, and OpenSea. There you can bid on the NFT of your choice and wait for the auction to end. If no one else outbids you, congratulation you are now the proud owner of an NFT. The only catch is that you will have to pay in cryptocurrency.

If you do buy or are planning to buy an NFT kindly leave a comment mentioning your point of view on this…