UNC students cash in on NFT craze
Twitter is adorned with cartoon monkeys and penguins – non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that have risen to the surface of cryptocurrency.
For some, they have sparked curiosity. For some, confusion. For others, they have been a source of profit. Now some UNC students are cashing in on the deal as NFTs grow in popularity.
NFTs are units of value stored on a blockchain, a digital database, that act as unique and uncopyable files. They are designed to increase the value of digital files by making them scarce.
Nick Gargano, a sophomore pre-business major, said he has not personally been involved in creating them, but has experience buying and selling NFTs.
“It’s kind of like an online collectible,” he said. “It’s like assigning a signature to a digital object like a picture or really anything. It can just be attached to anything and make it more unique.”
NFTs are operated as cryptocurrency and people need a digital wallet, compared to a folder, to store items. NFTs drop the same way they debut on physical marketplaces – customers must be on the trading platform when an NFT debuts to get one before supplies run out.
This is called coining, which creates NFT and files it into wallets, so people can hold it or sell it on other marketplaces, Gargano said.
Gargano said certain NFT gatherings have perks and online perks, particularly the Bored Ape Yacht Club, where many celebrities buy Twitter profile pictures.
“A lot of these are very hype-driven, especially because they’re limited,” he said. “It’s also kind of a con of them. You can build hype around it, and when it dies, they can become worthless.”
Megan Tezzi, a sophomore business and computer science major and director of digital marketing for the UNC Undergraduate Business Technology Club, said she started collecting NFTs when they first started to take off during the pandemic.
“COVID was when everything started to become more digitized. And with NFTs, you were able to collect digital assets that were almost real-world values,” she said. “And then with buying, selling and trading, collectibles became contactless and much more efficient than using a physical item.”
Tezzi trades on NFT platforms such as NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, which allow people to collect “one-of-a-kind moments” instead of physical sports cards.
She said that these moments are completely unique and cannot be replicated, as only a limited amount of people can own a specific NFT.
Esey Haile, a neuroscience major, said he earned over $1,000 from NFTs and has been in several projects, including Crypto Coral Tribe, an NFT collection based on preserving marine life.
One reason Haile said he got into NFTs is because he wanted to be ahead of the curve and knew there would be big profits to be made as the Internet decentralizes. NFTs thus create a platform where digital creators – whether musical or visual – can get more out of their work than they could on a large digital platform like Spotify.
“It’s like a personal keepsake that you can also make money from. It was no different for me — I really like shoes,” Haile said. “It was no different to me than buying and selling shoes.”
To get today’s news and headlines in your inbox every morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
