Non-fungible tokens, which experts abbreviate as Non Fungible Token-NFT, are digital procedures which, thanks to the blockchain, the IT mode that allows public registration and verification of activities on the web, and represent the evolution of operational protocols in part already known to the public.
Let's take an example of NFT, applying it to the art world , apologizing to those in the field who surely could have explained these things better but haven't done so yet.
So: do you remember the prints, the lithographs?
The artist prepared a matrix.
From this he then created a series of paper multiples which, to ensure commercial value and authenticity, were registered with a progressive number.
However, these procedures did not protect buyers from the serial production of parasitic copies or from counterfeits, which were very difficult to detect.
Thanks to the power of computer science, the old manual procedures today have dematerialized and encrypted.
With an electronic matrix it is now possible to generate a series of equally digital copies, conforming to the basic model, as well as authentic, immutable and moreover all always in public form, in the proverbial sunlight.
"Applied in the field of digital art ," the City of Lugano notes in presenting the event, "NFTs allow for the certification of the uniqueness and rarity of a work that, being digital, is easily replicable or reproducible, but which becomes rare once it is registered on the blockchain. An NFT is therefore not the work itself, nor even an artistic phenomenon, but the corresponding certification registered on the blockchain."
Expand this mode to other fields, such as music, fashion, or online games, and you can get an idea of how it is made, how it works and above all how much an NFT can make, whose production is constantly available on digital markets. to satisfy a fickle and very quick public to grab the news and hoard them, as has always happened in the past with conventional products.
These innovations generate a twofold interest.
First of all, practical: for the innovators of digital technologies and for the general public, to whom the web has multiplied the ambitions of an increasingly free will, and to be satisfied with continuous innovations.
On the other hand, public administrations are interested in the technical aspects of which, perhaps not by chance, it is said that they want to transfer the traditional public registers already known to us to digital archives.
This explains why the series of events organized by the Lugano municipality were a precious opportunity to learn about facts, theories, protagonists, fiction, applications and above all the profits of the irresistible couple NFT, the mind, and blockchain, its operational arm.
As if to unite two apparently contrasting historical periods, the elegant nineteenth-century architecture of Villa Ciani on the ground floor hosted the exhibition “The Future is Unwritten” , set up by Ivan Quaroni and Linda Tommasi, which offered a reasoned selection from the digital art gallery of the Poseidon Group , one of the main ones in Europe.
The first floor of the Ciani brothers' home was dedicated to gaming enthusiasts, an evolution of old video games, with digital works and collectibles developed by Lugano-based companies, including Crypto Heroes, a game based on NFTs and the NFT Gaming protocol of www.noku.io , represented by its director Roberto Gorini.
Also present is the online entertainment platform in 3D The Nemesis by UNDO Studios, which combines the technology of virtual worlds with that of gaming, as well as NFT of products from the world of luxury and jewels made by the Lugano company www.luxochain.io.
At Lugano NFT Week: Non Fungible Tangible it was also possible to examine the NFTs of Axie Infinity, the most well-known international NFT-blockchain game, as well as Cryptogene and Scriblet Clubhouse with Shifty Shepherds, designed by Juliet Duplessie, developed by Sortium, three projects to which Pangea , a fund specializing in blockchain projects and with offices in Lugano, contributed financially.
Also on the main floor of the Ciani building, the public visited the Swiss Post stand, where Martina Bellodi, Head of the postal network in Ticino , assisted by her colleague Mariangela Pola, customer consultant and philately expert at the Lugano-Centro branch, presented the preview of the first Swiss crypto-stamp: the Swiss Crypto Stamp , a physical stamp associated with NFT compositions.
It will be launched on November 25, but is already attracting the attention of philatelists worldwide.
Within the exhibition, in addition to various workshops including one by Maggie Rokkum-Testi of www.groupcopernicus.com for the NFT Gaming & Collectibles The Future is Now exhibition , it was also possible to participate in the creation of the first NFT of the City of Lugano and thus contribute to a collective artistic work.
In conclusion, the happy collaboration between public and private confirmed by this event reminds us that we have now entered an era where the future is no longer planned; we can only limit ourselves to chasing the tail of its very fast, fascinating, but elusive comet, lost in digital infinity.
What links the old and new worlds is the fact that the values expressed by digital assets, markets and currencies are understood by the general public when their commercial value , which is different from their technical value , is denominated in traditional currencies: be they dollars or francs.
Which leads us to remember that the blockchain and its declinations do not represent a product but a method of digital logic, which connects a point A to a result B.
It is then up to creativity, as always, to push the human imagination beyond all its limits.
