Purple Astronaut - it starts with an idea, a meandering rabbithole, my first NFT, then it gets interesting
or how I paid $562 for a jpg and learned to love it
Why I dove down the NFT rabbit hole
I am going to tell you about a transaction that changed how I think about the internet. But first I’m going to tell you why I made that transaction.
In December, I was out to dinner. A friend of mine works in professional sports and we were talking about Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. I really hate the phrase Non-Fungible Tokens. It starts with “Non-Fungible” — most people don’t know that it’s a fancy way of saying “unique.” Also, don’t get hung up on the word “token” — think of anything that is unique, not just a token or coin or something like that.
Here’s a simple example: if my son creates a Naruto drawing and I do some fancy tech stuff to it, I can make it a “Non-Fungible Token.” But the original version of that Naruto drawing in real life (in crypto world, they say “IRL”) — that Naruto drawing is a real life NFT. Here’s a great article, albeit from a skeptic, on NFTs. I mainly like the opening explanation about NFTs.
Anyways, my friend and I were talking about NFTs and sports. And I happened to come up with an idea around NFTs and sports cards. The next morning, I woke up and the idea was still gnawing a hole in my brain despite a few old fashioneds the night before.
So I decided to start learning about NFTs and getting involved in NFTs. I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into. In the end, all the work I am doing to learn about, research, and explore NFTs and cryptocurrency all relates back to a project I am working on. So there is a purpose to all this NFT madness. I think.
How I dove down the NFT rabbit hole
Another friend of mine, an insurance technology guy from Twitter, had previously sent me a link to get started in crypto. I bookmarked it but that was it.
Here’s the link: Learn NFT Skills with Rabbithole
Guess how much progress I made?
I haven’t made much progress, at least as far as Rabbithole goes. But I actually did make progress when I found my own path. Do you see the top right corner in the screenshot below? Those random letters and numbers constitute my first digital wallet, one that I created via Metamask.
There are a bunch of hoops you have to jump through in order to participate in NFTs and cryptocurrency. To me, the two key steps include getting a digital wallet and purchasing some cryptocurrency. Later, I learned that certain wallets accept certain currencies. Metamask accepts Ethereum.
At this point, I could go on for pages about why I love Ethereum but I’ll save that for another day. If you are a lawyer, or if you are interested in how legal transactions can occur with zero friction, you should research Ethereum.
At this point, I had $701.62 of Ethereum loaded up in my digital wallet. So I started shopping around.
My First NFT
I ended up contacting another friend who was deep into crypto and NFTs. He recommended I check out this website:
After poking around a bit, I decided to take the plunge. Remy Bond was a well-known artist. He had ties to NASA. I don’t recall what else sold me on the project — ultimately, I got lucky.
I figured out that I could purchase a Mendel NFT for about .18 ethereum (or $600). Yes, that amount of money seemed completely crazy to me. I also understood that I would not see my Mendel immediately because it would be randomly chosen from 770 that was generated by the artist. This process is called “minting.”
Minting is actually a really big deal, super fun, and easy to understand. Imagine you want to buy a pack of baseball cards. Somewhere, a baseball card company produces those baseball cards and randomly inserts them into a baseball card pack. Some cards are rarer than others. I then pick a pack at a store and open it to see what is inside. I could get a unique 1:1 card or I could get all commons.
Minting of an NFT works in a similar way — minting randomly assigns you your own NFT from a collection.
Honestly, though, I was ecstatic when I bought my NFT. Here’s a Twitter thread I created that documents why:
Ultimately, I think buying my first NFT was a symbolic gesture to myself that I was ready to start building again and I was ready to take on the new universe that is web3.
(Yes, I know that is corny.)
So I bought my Mendel and then it minted. And it turned out to be a purple astronaut, which you can see in my avatar or at the top of this post. Or you can go check out my purple astronaut and some other weird NFTs I have purchased in my OpenSea portfolio.
Things Get Interesting
Since December 23, I have been listening to a lot of NFT podcasts and thinking about the technology and what it facilitates. Ethereum and NFTs fix two problems that have long existed in marketplaces:
Reduce Friction
Control Scarcity
Buying my first NFT helped me understand these concepts. I am a visual learner; I have to do the thing to understand how it works. When I completed my first ethereum transaction, I could feel the lack of barriers.
So now I am in the interesting part. I have always been creative but rarely do new technologies appear that are asking for creative applications. NFTs are one of those things.