NFTs, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain — and how a local artist is making a digital splash | Money

And … what does it all mean? It’s a subject that continues to consternate. (In a recent Saturday Night Live skit featuring Kate McKinnon as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the crew tried to tackle the topic in a rap song “now what the hell’s an NFT?”)

NFTs — short for non-fungible tokens — are one-of-a-kind, non-replicable digital assets. Think digital trading cards. They can be drawings, photos, music, video clips or just about anything — Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, recently put an NFT of an autographed tweet up for auction.

Defined by Merriam-Webster, an NFT is “A unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership as of a specific digital asset and specific rights relating to it.” (The dictionary company sold the definition as an NFT in an online auction May 14, with the proceeds going to Teach For All, a global organization for disadvantaged children.)

Like trading cards, signatures, albums and paintings, NFTs’ values can grow over time.

A Treasure Valley artist who goes by the moniker “Planet Darth” reached out to the Idaho Press with a story about his own NFTs

“Hello, I am a local independent artist that has been creating characters from potatoes,” he wrote in an email. “I recently released my first collection to the public as NFTs and the five potatoes sold out for almost $10,000. I am not sure if this would be relevant to you but since I live here, make potato art, and NFTs seem to be a popular talking point I thought I would reach out.”

Since then, one of Planet Darth’s potatoes was resold by Twitter user @punk4156 “in a farmhouse-themed audio-only clubhouse auction for the charity givecrypto.org,” Planet Darth said.

The pieces were auctioned off by Zack Zumstein of the Treasure Valley Livestock Auction.

“I’d never heard of an NFT in my life,” Zumstein said, but his interest — and curiosity — was piqued. And he was surprised by the auction attendees. “There was one guy from France, he said it was 2:30 in the morning there — it was 5 p.m. in Idaho. He’d stayed up all night, he was so excited. … They paid me in cryptocurrency,” said Zumstein. “I had to ask them to kind of explain it to me.” The first thing was, he had to set up a digital wallet to receive the crypto — in his case, “etherium.” He can cash it out into real money anytime, but he’s letting it sit for a spell. “They told me it could be worth 100 to 1,000 times what it is right now in five years,” Zumstein said.

When Planet Darth first sold the five potato-themed NFTs, he pocketed about $2,000, as the original owner. But every time one is resold, he gets a royalty. And, the images (one is a GIF) can be used by anyone — in fact, the more the images get around on the internet, the more valuable they become. And the more his reputation as an artist can grow.

Planet Darth, who is a graphic artist by trade, said he knew he wanted in on the ground floor when he first heard about NFTs. “Think of them as (digital) trading cards,” he said. “Really, what I’m drawn to is the technology,” he said. “It is really a new take on intellectual property.” It has to be authorized and verified for authenticity. And now, “if anybody can see a ‘spud’ online, they can trace it back to my digital wallet” for verification purposes, he said.

His original idea for creating a collectible image was to try something based on meat and potatoes. “I wanted to do something different. I thought, ‘what’s Idaho like? It’s just a lot of meat and potatoes.’ … But googly eyes on a raw steak did not look good. So it turned out to be just potatoes,” he said.

“When I sold these spuds, what I did was, I created five different characters with different attributes and personalities and and photographed them in four different angles. Then sold them as bundles. … to the original purchaser who believes in me and my work. They were able to buy four. In the future, they can sell them in shards or fractional ownership — and still own a piece of the original investment that may increase in worth.”

In addition to being able to make more money if one of the images is resold — for instance if a potato company, say, wants to make Darla, one of the spuds, a mascot for the company — the more the image gets simply passed around on the internet, the more valuable the original NFT becomes. With her googly eyes and oh-my-goodness mouth, Darla has become a reactionary GIF for shocking news, said Planet Darth, hoping that as he grows more credibility as an artist, so, too, does any art he has created that is already out there.

“I like that my art is being used as a living, breathing meme.”