In 2021, Collins Dictionary ranked NFT as the word of the year. Today, it has remained a focal point in web 3 — thanks to its army of critics.
Given the bad media publicity, we should begin to wonder how NFT is able to dominate the web 3 conversation. After all, the latest in a long list of coordinated attacks on NFT is the recent #Godhatesnfts campaign that trended recently on Twitter.
CRITICIZING NFTs
The villainization of NFT began shortly after it went mainstream in the first quarter of 2021,not only because the NFT boom inspired more greed than creativity but also because it sparked a controversial debate about the activities surrounding it as well.
One of the many concerns that have continued to set tongues waggling to this day is the environmental impact of minting tons of NFTs daily, and as with the mining of cryptocurrencies, the proliferation of NFTs on the various blockchains has added another ammunition to the critics’ arsenal.
Although it is such a good impression that NFT represents a shift in the trajectory of digital art and in the creation of a layer of digital security for assets that can be tokenized, we can not help but to pay attention to the growing anti-NFT movement that is fast gaining momentum on the internet.
Moreover, with NFT representing a radical shift in the way society values things that are capable of being owned and in how to put them behind a ‘firewall” in blockchain, there can be no doubt about its potential to become one of the web 3 tools that would onboard the mass of mankind to the era of decentralization.
But were are still very much in the early days where the criticisms leveled against NFT are as controversial, as they were, when they were first popularised by NFT critics, and to these, we shall turn in the succeeding paragraphs.
THE OWNERSHIP ARGUMENT
Critics who debate the wisdom behind the storing of NFTs or “worthless jpegs” on the blockchain believe that such leverage is fraudulent in the first place and can do little to prevent NFTs from getting randomly duplicated. The key point about this line of argument is that NFTs are merely a function of Right-Click & Save, a shortcut function that is used to download the duplicated copy of an NFT.
While this raises little or no concern for an artist whose NFT collection may face a possible risk, those who hold on to this argument have always failed to prove their understanding of the workings of the blockchain technology, which in fairness, means they lack an understanding of how duplicating or downloading a copy of an NFT does not confer blockchain ownership.
Furthermore, as of today, there is only one known Jack Dorsey’s NFT Tweet, the counterfeit of which has neither been found nor sold anywhere on the planet, and that means only one thing: while NFTs can change hands, they remain the exclusive digital assets of the verified owners whose details are searchable on the blockchain.
This also clearly shows that a click & save a copy of Jack’s minted NFT is incapable of establishing real ownership, nor would the owner have the bragging rights attached to the original version.
THE RUG-PULL ARGUMENT
In a futile attempt to popularise this line of argument, critics have mounted a loaded cannon of words that are usually fired at NFT whenever a rug-pull is reported in the crypto media. They use such words as scam, “crook,” “rug,” “too-good-to-be-true, etc., whenever the opportunity to make a case against NFT presents itself.
For example, the renowned British artist David Hockney had once described Christie’s auctioned Beeple NFTs as ‘silly little things,’ while taking aim at NFT as the “domain of
international crooks and swindlers”.
Hockney’s skepticism is well-known and could be the most vociferous of all, given his prestige as the highest valued living British painter in the world. It also reflects his zero interest in NFT and implies that his criticisms and opinions about it will always garner media attention effortlessly.
However, to be fair to the 85-year-old artist, who has probably seen the best of what the traditional world of art can offer, it would be ridiculous if he allowed himself to be swayed by the ongoing crypto art craze which tactically aims to gain as much respectability as possible in the art industry.
It is understandable that Hockney should consider digital art a silly break from traditional art. But it is not clear whether he has a fixed opinion on the future of crypto art that is fast gaining traction in the digital art industry, which surmises that technology has had such a tremendous amount of impact on art itself.
In this era, the digital artist has the potential to edge out the traditional artist by leveraging a digital technology that improves the quality of art by significantly reducing the tendency for man-made errors or inefficiencies.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION ARGUMENT
This argument is simple: NFTs are a menace to the environment or blockchain itself is the culprit responsible for the carbon footprint. In addition to making for eye-catching headlines, it is also unintentionally creating an unintended byproduct that is keeping environmentalists awake at night, haunted by ideas of ecological extinction.
NFTs are just network-based tokens that are part of the blockchain system, despite the social buzz. Platforms that sell NFTs often require purchasers to make purchases using proper decentralized payment methods.
According to some energy auditing specialists, the digital token already consumes almost the same amount of electricity as the entire country of Libya. More NFT transactions and higher demand suggest profit prospects for miners, which could lead to higher emissions. The basic idea is that NFTs might greatly increase the value of the needed cryptic token, incentivizing more intensive, and thus energy-intensive, mining for profit and thus raising the number of machines miners use.
It is true that the environmental impact of NFTs is expected to be significant as their popularity develops and trading momentum intensifies. With current talks about climate change, meshed global heat signatures, and sustainability, the increasing adoption of NFTs makes the issue of blockchain technology’s energy consumption and the carbon emissions that arise from it more real and important.
While the issue of NFT-caused emissions has been almost completely overshadowed by the allure of wealth creation, it comes at a time when environmental activists and climate professionals have been warning about the unprecedented rise in temperature, sea level, species extinction, severe weather events, and other signs of global warming.
HOW SCARY IS THIS?
A single Ethereum transaction requires more than 70.32 kWh, enough to power a single US family for 2.5 days, according to the Digiconomist website. This corresponds to a carbon footprint of around 34 kg of CO2 (CO2).
This carbon footprint is the equivalent of over 5,700 hours of YouTube video or over 76,000 credit card transactions when compared to traditional methods of consumption. According to some experts, Ethereum uses more energy per year than Denmark and has a carbon footprint comparable to that of Lithuania.
However, thanks to those who argue that the carbon footprint of NFTs is not significant enough to impact the environment negatively, we can now assert the fact that the climate change issue has much longer been around and that the much-awaited Merge by Ethereum, one of the leading blockchains in the world, promises to significantly reduce crypto energy consumption.
CONCLUSION
While summoning the evidence of the dark sides of NFT remains a valid way to establish a thesis, there exists a strong likelihood for NFT critics to unwittingly exaggerate the ugly situation, and much of the energy that has been expended by critics on picking holes in the entire architecture of blockchain technology reflects the vanity of being on the side of Luddite.
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