What Is an NFT?

What you’ll learn

• •An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token — a unique, non-interchangeable record of ownership on a blockchain, typically built to the ERC-721 or ERC-1155 standard.
• •The blockchain usually stores a pointer to the file (art, music, item), not the file itself — the actual content often lives off-chain.
• •If off-chain storage is centralised and disappears, the token can survive while the linked content becomes inaccessible ('link rot').
• •Owning an NFT means owning that specific token — it does not automatically grant copyright or reproduction rights to the underlying work.
• •Digital art and collectibles made NFTs famous, but headline sales are a poor sample of the many low-value or unsold NFTs in the space.
• •Unlike fungible ERC-20 tokens, each NFT — even within the same collection — has its own ID, metadata, and often distinct traits and value.
• •The core skill this week builds is distinguishing genuine utility and demand from short-term hype and speculation.