NFTs, Blockchain, Metaverse: Three journeys into the future

The acronym NFT and metavers are doing the rounds of the crypto-markets. However, just like crypto-currencies, these concepts remain unfamiliar to the general public - for whom these booming markets are little more than a den of geeks or a speculative bubble. Here's a glossary to help you better understand this trend.

NFT

In the wake of the burgeoning market for digital objects, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been created. Short for "non-fungible token", an NFT uses blockchain technology to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of a work of art. It is not possible to have two identical tokens. The first owner of a token will be its sole owner and no one else. Each token will be unique and can only be kept by the person who bought it. They are therefore the digital equivalent of a work of art, and can be sold on the secondary market to other collectors.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a technology that makes it possible to secure and verify a range of information and transactions in a transparent and unforgeable way, guaranteed by a number of users in a decentralized manner thanks to cryptography, the encryption technique behind bitcoin. As soon as a new piece of information is recorded on the network, the previous one is entered in a digital register and can no longer be modified. The advantage of blockchain is that the history of information can be preserved without anyone being able to alter it, and without intermediaries. The immutability of blockchain has already been used for sensitive data, such as documents certifying the provenance of property or works of art.

NFTs are also based on blockchain, which enables proof of digital ownership of an asset to be recorded on a digital register, along with a set of information relating to that asset (the author in the case of a work, its price, etc.).

Metaverse

The term "metaverse" was popularized in the 1990s as a concept for virtual reality. Thanks to blockchain, it is possible to create an economy in which metaverse users can navigate between these different virtual universes, own objects via NFTs and carry out crypto-currency transactions.