The last episode said that we can enter the virtual world through external electronic equipment, that is, the “metaverse”. Entering a world with completely new rules, it is natural that we cannot apply the original social norms and logic to understand, and currency and assets also have a new form in the “metaverse”.
Two blockchain-based concepts are essential to understanding the metaverse: virtual currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
NFT can be understood as an electronic certificate to prove who this item belongs to in the virtual world. Let’s learn together today how private property rights are defined and protected in the Metaverse.
01 Private property in the virtual world
In the real world, our definition of private property is usually the property that an individual can exercise over his name: the right to use, transfer, earn income and dispose of it. In layman’s terms, as long as you buy or get an item through legal channels, you have the private property rights of the item.
In the “metaverse”, people cannot physically own an object, a piece of music, or a picture, because these “objects” usually exist in electronic forms such as numbers or computer languages. At this time, consumption and production become meaningless, because there is no relative monetary value.
To solve the problem of defining wealth ownership, NFT appeared.
02 Non-fungible same currency
In the real world, we will use property deeds, receipts, etc. to prove that we have successfully transacted and acquired ownership of the item. It can be seen that transactions in real society: exchange money for a substantial item or service (and possibly obtain a paper certificate).
In the virtual world, virtual currency has always been in circulation, but it is difficult to prove the ownership of virtual world assets. For example, if you buy a piece of land in the game, how do you prove that you own this string of “computer code”? If it cannot be proved, then private property rights in the virtual world cannot be guaranteed. From an economic point of view, it is impossible to “trade” without “private property rights”: how can you trade the item without owning it?
The emergence of NFT is to allow people to mark the ownership of items in the virtual world. In short, it is like an “electronic receipt” to prove that you own an asset in the virtual world.
NFT gives economic items in the virtual world (that is, valuable in people’s hearts, people want more items) such as movies, music, game clothing, etc., with privatization characteristics.
By issuing a unique serial number (which can be understood as a complex set of passwords), the corresponding serial number can only be obtained after purchasing the “item”. It’s like paying money to get the key to the safe. This is NFT. In the virtual world, others may see your purchased “item”, but the right to use and trade it rests with you, the buyer.
03 The meaning of NFT
NFT makes “items” unique and can be collected and purchased by people. Since then, assets in the “metaverse” also have monetary value and can also be traded.
As long as you pay, every server on the blockchain writes a purchase record. In other words, your ownership of the item will be permanently recorded and cannot be tampered with. To a certain extent, it is safer than shopping in reality. Don’t worry about being robbed or stolen, because if someone wants to take your property, you must first modify the information in thousands of servers.
04 Summary
We will continue to talk about NFT technology and examples in the next issue.
What has been traded in the form of NFT recently? Have you noticed that celebrities are also catching up with the wave and starting to issue their NFT products?
