Cultural artifact examples code#

Money is the best example: you can exchange a dollar for four quarters and the value stays the same. Anything digital could be sold as an NFT if it’s in the auction market (and you have the big digital wallet to acquire it).įungibility means the asset can be interchanged easily with other assets of the same kind. You can now 'own' a helmet in your favorite video game or a plot of land there.

Cultural artifact examples code#

An NFT is proof of ownership (token) of a unique piece of code - a tweet, a video, a digital image. It’s about ownership, but not of an object you can touch. Then the company unveiled a digital copy of the art they just burned, getting more reaction than the dramatic fire show and original artwork. A tech company purchased a physical piece of art by the elusive artist, Banksy, and then burned it, broadcasting it live on the internet.

So, it’s not surprising the artifacts that have meaning for us are digital - that’s where we live. Following this watershed upheaval, it's unlikely we'll completely return to what used to be normal. Our workplaces, our lifestyles and almost everything important to us can be found in the great digital assembly. We all shifted our lives online in response to the pandemic. These new collectibles - a tweet, a digital image, a gaming video clip - are all non-fungible tokens or NFTs, one-of-a-kind pieces of digital content, typically traded by crypto-currency such as bitcoin and valued in the marketplace as cultural and technological experiences that high-profile investors are willing to spend millions to own. Christie’s auction house sold a digital collage called 'Everydays: The First 5,000 Days' for $69.3 million. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, sold his first-ever published tweet for $2.9 million. In March 2021, Christie’s, Twitter and Polkamon share the headlines in a new explosive trend: the NFT marketplace.

In 1987, Van Gogh's iconic 'Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers' sold at Christie’s in London for $39.9 million. He only sold a handful of his 900 or more paintings during his lifetime, and had to exchange some of his works for food. Vincent Van Gogh was a commercial failure. It's fascinating to watch how each generation attaches value to its cultural artifacts. While the NFT industry is still working on best practices for where to safely store assets, buyers will need to be cautious about who they do business with.