Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are a kind of Rorschach test.
In 2021, the desire for the technology, which confirms ownership of unique digital assets, has spread throughout the content industry. Will NFTs, on the other hand, grow into a long-term industry for Hollywood?
True believers hail them as a huge market-disrupting force whose full influence will take a decade or more to unfold. Skeptics, on the other hand, perceive a FOMO-fueled movement as irrational as the 1600s Dutch tulip bulb mania.
There has been a new NFT announcement almost every day recently. Warner Bros., Disney, Lionsgate, Fox, ViacomCBS, WWE, the UFC, CNN, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures are among the corporations, brands, and artists that have joined the bandwagon. NFT fever has been caught by everyone from K-pop giants BTS to Lil Nas X in the music industry. Quentin Tarantino said last week that he planned to sell seven unedited sequences from “Pulp Fiction” as NFTs on OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace. (Even Variety is getting in on the fun, with plans to sell NFTs of renowned headlines and front pages through the Sweet marketplace.)
NFTs promise a new approach for media and entertainment firms to monetize intellectual property and keep people involved — literally — in their brands. The term “nonfungible” refers to the fact that NFTs are not interchangeable in the same way that currency is: the content’s worth is determined by buyers and sellers.
The majority of Hollywood’s NFT films have been only dipping their toes in the water. “NFTs are not the flavour of the month,” argues Peter Csathy of Creatv Media, an industry consultant and investor who believes, “NFTs are not the flavour of the month.” For content creators, it’s unquestionably a new financial model.”
