There’s been a tremendous amount of hype and misinformation about nonfungible tokens (NFTs) since they appeared on the scene in 2014, particularly since the total market for them passed $24 billion. You can’t open a news feed without an article about nonfungible tokens popping up. These inevitably contain the obligatory “An NFT is a” paragraph for newcomers… and for readers who’ve consumed a dozen similar articles but still don’t get it. If you’re among the latter, you’ve come to the right place.
NFTs really can be important and useful, and they’re evolving to become more so. But NFT evangelists and skeptics alike tend to dumb things down, hype things up and sometimes just get things wrong. Here are a few claims you might have read about NFTs — both pro and con: