GQ'S NFT FAQ

22 questions about the insanely lucrative, uniquely confusing, distressingly scammy, and quite possibly revolutionary world of non-fungible tokens.

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SECTION 1 THE BASICS

1 SO WHAT ARE NFTs, ANYWAY?

In essence, an NFT, or nonfungible token, is just a record that someone owns something. That record lives on the Ethereum blockchain-an ongoing, impossible-to-fake public ledger that shows everyone who's ever owned the thing in question. (So even if someone can copy and paste your cartoon of an ape, the real one-the only real one is clearly and incontrovertibly yours.) Of course, NFTs aren't just small artworks-they can serve as contracts or tickets to events or memberships in clubs. And, in some cases, they're shockingly valuable: It's not unheard of for certain NFTs to run to six figures. And, uh, people spent around $20 billion buying and selling these things last year. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. What NFTs are, fundamentally, is that record of ownership the thing that's owned is almost secondary. -DUNCAN COOPER

2 GOT IT. BUT WHY DO THEY MATTER, AGAIN?

Some people who are bullish on NFTs think that this sort of radical transparency can save art, liberate the internet, and restore democracy. Others think NFTs will accelerate societal collapse through grift and greed and melt the polar ice caps thanks to the insane energy demands required to store all the data required to keep the blockchain running.

That's a pretty wide range of outcomes: total triumph or total disaster. How terrifying! How fun! Predicting what comes next in a space that moves as fast as NFTs is a futile exercise, but it's hard to imagine that all of this energy adds up to nothing. -D.C.

3 OKAY, SO WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?