NFTs
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that cannot be divided or duplicated, and they are becoming more popular than ever before. NFTs have been called “digital collectibles” because they enable people to own unique digital representations of physical items like art, sports cards, and rare cars.
In 2021, sales of NFTs have grown to exceed the online art and antique market. So far in 2021 alone, sales of non-fungible tokens have reached a value of over $13 billion. In the first half of 2020, NFTs sold for just over $13 million, representing an unprecedented growth rate.
With this tremendous growth, of course, comes an influx of users to the crypto industry, and the two largest cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin and Ether, or two inefficient Proof of Work systems. As explored in an expose series titled “The Unreasonable Ecological Cost of #CryptoArt,” NFTs have a large impact on emissions, since a single NFT can involve many transactions, including minting, bidding, canceling, sales, and transfer of ownership after the initial purchase.
These additional steps all require additional work from energy-intensive miners to verify and confirm transactions. Companies like Clout.art have partnered with ImpactScope as NFT offsetting partners.
With all that said, NFTs are not inherently inefficient, they’re just commonly minted Ethereum which runs an energy intensive PoW consensus mechanism.
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