How NFTs Can Move Beyond Arts and Entertainment

NFTs are all the rage. These digital tokens—often associated with digital art and collectibles, songs, videos and designs—are everywhere, but they are more than novel art. In fact, NFTs may offer solutions, at least in part, to some of society’s challenges. 

Simply put, an NFT (short for nonfungible token) is a unit of data stored on a blockchain—a database of transactions organized without the need for a central trusted authority. Because they rely on blockchain technology, NFTs have attributes that are attractive to buyers: The provenance of every token is tracked on the blockchain, which provides proof of the authenticity, as well as ownership, of the token. Moreover, blockchains make NFTs accessible—their code is freely available, and all people who have access to the internet can use the technology.