What’s Happening: According to new data collected by the Harris Poll, only one quarter of Americans report being familiar with non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are digital collectibles that use cryptocurrency to prove ownership of everything from tweets to digital artworks.
The Download: If you’ve read up on NFTs and you’re still unclear on what they actually are, you aren’t alone. (Our handy guide might be able to help.) Most Americans admit to not quite understanding how they work even after NFTs were explained to them. Saturday Night Live recently aired a skit to decipher the phenomenon, and (inevitably) an NFT of the NFT sketch was sold for 171.99 ETH, or around $365,000, to someone called “Dr_Dumpling.”
Why It Matters: Meanwhile, there are Americans who are willing to buy NFTs. Less than half of survey participants said they think NFTs are a legitimate form of art, but they weren’t willing to spend as much as recent collectors have. In recent weeks, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet for $2.9 million, and Beeple’s viral crypto artwork fetched a record-shattering $69.3 million at Christie’s. That said, 74 percent of Americans admitted they were willing to spend just $99 or less on an NFT if their favorite artist or professional sports team were to make an item available in this format. If you can believe it, the median response was even lower, at $10.
Surface Says: What’s next? An NFT of the auction of the sketch about NFTs?