The innovation of NFT is that it has been confirmed on the blockchain platform, that is, it has obtained a unique identity and can not be tampered with and copied. And in theory, "everything can be NFT". The digital assets formed by using NFT technology can be a moving picture, a picture, a avatar, a video, or even a text content.
Recently, the theft case caused by a "monkey" has quickly become a dominant topic on domestic social networking sites. This "monkey" has attracted wide attention because it is Jay Chou's NFT Collection - boring ape. Last March, artist beeple's NFT painting "every day: the first 5000 days" sold for a sky high price of $69.37 million, and NFT quickly became popular. During this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, the price of Bing Dwen Dwen NFT digital collection soared nearly a thousand times, which also triggered a hot scramble by countless people.
Nowadays, the popularity of NFT industry is unprecedented, but it is accompanied by a series of negative news, such as theft, infringement, price shrinkage and so on. How to ensure the security of digital assets has also become a topic of more concern.
Why are NFT works so popular
Today, NFT works worth tens of thousands of dollars were first born in 2017. Ethereum, the famous blockchain platform, launched a pixel avatar project called "cryptopunks", which was available for free in that year.
Until 2021, as NFT works were repeatedly photographed at sky high prices, many stars entered one after another, and NFT began to be known by more people.
"NFT is a non homogenous token based on blockchain technology, which is essentially a kind of cryptocurrency." Su Ming, an associate researcher at the school of Cyberspace Security of Nankai University, said that the innovation of NFT is that it has been confirmed on the blockchain platform, that is, it has obtained a unique identity and can not be tampered with and copied. And in theory, "everything can be NFT". The digital assets formed by using NFT technology can be a moving picture, a picture, a avatar, a video, or even a text content.
It is precisely because of the characteristics of NFT that the art collection industry, film and television music publishing industry and art creators are prized.
"The binding of NFT and art collections makes it easier to circulate and transfer, and can ensure the security of art transactions." Su Ming explained that the irreplaceable nature of NFT greatly reduces the possibility of counterfeiting, which solves the problem that art collectors have been plagued by counterfeits for a long time.
NFT collections can realize the right confirmation of assets, facilitate the transaction and circulation, and improve the realization efficiency. Moreover, according to the transaction agreements of different platforms, each transaction of NFT collection can allow its previous owners to obtain a certain proportion of share.
At the same time, NFT can solve the problem of copyright protection in industries with rampant piracy such as film and television and music. NFT's right confirmation is the copyright statement that the creator needs to be tampered with. This right confirmation can provide the most reliable proof for the preservation of the original. "NFT technology makes it easy to track piracy because a work has a unique ID on the blockchain. In addition, for piracy, some technical means can also be used to prevent unqualified IDs from being viewed or listened to normally." Su Ming said.
In the future, the most ideal application scenario of NFT is the metauniverse that has not yet taken shape. In the existing cognition, if the metauniverse wants to connect with the real scene, NFT is an important way to connect virtual and reality. It can be said that if there is anything in the real world, there can be any NFT in the meta universe, and the transaction can be completed through NFT. It can be predicted that NFT will have more use in the meta universe.
What determines the value of NFT
In the past two years, seemingly ordinary things have changed into digital collections after the "Enlightenment" of NFT, and their value has doubled. The boring ape head, which could be bought for $250 a year ago, is now easily sold for $300000.
At the same time, in March 2021, cryptocurrency entrepreneur hina estawi auctioned the NFT of twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's first tweet on twitter in 2006 for $2.9 million. At the auction in April 2022, the highest bid was only $280, and its value decreased to less than one tenth of a million.
The price of this day and place is also somewhat incomprehensible. Where is the value of NFT? The same is NFT. Why is the price difference so large.
"If the NFT collection is regarded as a physical collection, its value is not difficult to understand." Su Ming explained that the value of a physical collection mainly depends on two aspects: one is the artistic level of the creator himself, and the other is the degree to which the work is recognized by the public, that is, the level of its consensus value. It takes the author more than 5000 days to create works of art in the first five years of NFT, just like the law that it takes him more than 5000 days to create works of art in the first five years of NFT. The works were auctioned through the blockchain platform. Because everyone recognized their value, the final price was more than 60 million US dollars.
Some NFT collections will also be "inlaid with Phnom Penh" after being "punched in" by celebrities. Due to the collection of NBA star Stephen curry, singer Lin Junjie, Justin Bieber, Jay Chou, Madonna and other celebrities, the NFT avatar of boring ape has become one of the hottest items in the NFT market. "It's like some ancient calligraphy and painting collections have been collected by famous figures in history, and their value will naturally become expensive." Su Ming said.
In addition, NFT collections are valuable because of certain emotional factors. For example, Su Ming said that some people happened to witness the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. If there was a Bing Dwen Dwen NFT collection, it would arouse good memories at that time. The NFT collection here has become a kind of emotional sustenance, so the NFT is valuable to collectors.
At present, NFT is moving towards the traditional industry and attracting more and more creators to move the work transaction to the blockchain platform. Many platforms at home and abroad support users to make and upload NFT works by themselves. The specific way for most platforms to make NFT is to require users to upload pictures, 3D models and other materials to the platform and pay a certain fee to "go up the chain". After NFT works are generated, foreign countries can freely set prices and trade. Due to relatively strict supervision in China, NFT digital collections on some platforms cannot be transferred online temporarily and can only be purchased.
How can we avoid NFT theft
The popularity of NFT market has also attracted the covet of some people. The theft of Jay Chou's "monkey" is not a case. "Although the digital signature technology adopted in the blockchain ensures that the private key is difficult to crack, hackers can also let users disclose information through phishing links." Su Ming explained that proving the ownership of NFT depends on its private key, which is equivalent to a secret key stored on the computer. If the private key holder opens phishing software on the computer or his computer is maliciously installed with trojan virus by hackers, it may lead to the leakage of the private key. The person who owns the private key becomes the owner of NFT and can sell NFT.
With current technology, once the NFT is stolen, the probability of being recovered is very slim. "Because blockchain is a decentralized system, if NFT is transferred to a certain address, you can only see that address at most, and you can't correspond to the person using this address, so you can't recover it." Su Ming said.
Under the legal background, NFT still faces many problems in terms of whether it can be protected qualitatively and legally.
How to protect your NFT? At present, the more common way to steal NFT is to use phishing email, that is, in the form of email link, to lure operators to connect their digital wallet to false websites, and then steal NFT. Therefore, Su Ming suggested that, first, do not click the link with unknown path; Second, be sure to keep the NFT private key. Once the private key or mnemonic word is leaked, the account will no longer belong to you, so don't disclose the private key to anyone on any occasion; Third, some operations are best carried out without networking. Try not to let the private key access the Internet. In addition, you can keep the private key through traditional ways such as safe and hardware wallet.
Su Ming
Associate researcher, School of Cyberspace Security, Nankai University