Need a gift idea? Gift an NFT (non-fungible token)! With the recent explosion in popularity of NFTs, you may be wondering if you can gift one to a friend or loved one. The answer is yes! You can gift an NFT to someone just like you would any other digital item. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before you do.
Yes, you can gift an NFT! Traditional gifting is becoming a thing of the past, as more and more people are turning to NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) as gifts. This shift is being driven by the growing popularity of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
NFTs are unique digital assets that can be used to represent anything from artwork to collectibles. They are stored on the blockchain, which makes them secure and tamper-proof. This makes them an ideal choice for gifting, as you can be sure that the recipient will receive exactly what you intended to give them.
There are a number of platforms where you can purchase NFTs, such as OpenSea and Rarible. You can also find many creative ways to gift them, such as using a service like GiftcardMints.
As NFTs become more and more mainstream, giving NFTs as gifts will become more and more common. In fact, OpenSea, the largest NFT platform sitting on the Ethereum blockchain has made it very easy to gift NFTs via its transfer function. All you need to do is to:
However, gifting NFTs actually is larger than simply transferring an NFT between wallets. Here are some other scenarios where NFTs are given away for free, rather than sold.
Airdropping is a practice in web3 whereby tokens are sent to specific digital wallets. Airdrops are usually done at the initial phase of marketing for an NFT project. Some NFT projects give away their first mints for free to influential persons in the NFT space such as NFT influencers such as Max Maher and “whales” (NFT holders who own large amounts of NFTs). This is to get some traction for their NFT projects. The influencers and whales who receive their NFTs would make mention of their projects on their social media. And those who regularly check the influencers’ and whales’ digital wallet addresses would see that they possess the early mints of a new NFT project.
Max Maher Youtube Channel
Free minting is a practice where the primary mints (direct from creator) are given away with no charge. Goblintown WTF is well known for having done this. A more recent project that is doing this is Aliens. The objective of free minting is to greatly reduce the supply of tokens (the alternative would be to “burn” them) in the market so that when the NFT project goes to the secondary market (such as OpenSea), the demand would outstrip the supply. This would push the prices up exponentially. In the case of Goblintown WTF, the average price when it was first minted on the secondary market was 0.0965 ETH on 22 May 2022. Due to this strategy, the price quickly escalated to 7,6454 ETH on 3 Jun 2022.
Goblin Town WTF
CC0 NFTs refer to NFTs which have relinquished their intellectual property rights to the general public. An example of this is Cryptoadz. CC0 refers to “Creative Commons No Rights Reserved”. NFT projects which use this licence are practically allowing anyone and everyone (not just limited to those who buy their NFTs) to use their artwork in any way they deem fit, be it for personal, professional or commercial use. In this case, the NFT itself is not gifted to others, but the intellectual property is. It is gifted to the general public, free to use in perpetuity. CC0 was not invented by proponents of web3. Rather, it was created during the Web 2.0 era when user-uploaded content became the defining feature of the internet, leading to disputes over copyright, fair use and open-source use in the public domain. Web3 proponents decided to take up CC0 as an intellectual property licence for a certain objective: by allowing anyone and everyone to use the artwork, it is hoped that the artwork would trend or go viral. When the artwork trends or goes viral, the owners of the NFTs would also gain benefit both in terms of influence as well as monetarily.
Screenshot of CrypToadz by GREMPLIN in OpenSea
The idea of giving away, instead of selling NFTs has been around for a while. When people in the general public think about NFTs, they often think about how simple JPEGs can sell for thousands of dollars. In fact, to reduce it even further, some even think that people are paying premium prices for pictures of monkeys (of course, an oversimplification of the news surrounding the sales of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) or any of its other derivatives).
But the truth is far from that. NFTs have been gaining traction as pillars of the web3 experience. As of late, NFTs have been used in many more dimensions, including ticket sales (such as Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk’s famous Flyfish Club Restaurant), charitable donations (such as UNICEF’s Patchwork Kingdom project) and crowdfunding (such as the Cyber Trans Punk project).
Big brands such as Nike, Lacoste and Starbucks have also released NFT collections, signaling greater acceptance of NFTs and web3 among the mainstream public. Gone are the days where web3 was only meant for tinfoil hatters afraid of fluctuations in the economy (in case you didn’t know, Bitcoin was started as a response to the 2008 global financial crisis). Terms like WAGMI (we are all going to make it) is no longer a rallying cry among web3 enthusiasts trying to get out of an economic rut. NFTs are going to make it. To the mainstream, that is.
