Winkelmann sought advice on the burgeoning field from friends like Pak, a pseudonymous artist whose intricate geometric renderings were already selling as N.F.T.s for thousands of dollars. In new online marketplaces such as Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, and Foundation, artists can upload, or “mint,” their works as unique N.F.T.s, then sell them. format functions a little like a museum label noting the piece’s provenance-a proprietary stamp, attached to digital pieces that can still circulate freely across the Internet. Imagine digital Beanie Babies, but with only one existing copy of each. In 2017, an early iteration called CryptoKitties offered a marketplace of cartoon cat images, some of which traded hands for upward of a hundred thousand dollars. N.F.T.s have existed in various forms for the better part of a decade.

Using the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies like bitcoin-strings of data made permanent and unalterable by a decentralized computer network-N.F.T.s can be attached to anything from an MP3 to a single JPEG image, a tweet, or a video clip of a basketball game.

Broadly speaking, N.F.T.s are a tool for providing proof of ownership of a digital asset. In October of last year, Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist who goes by the name Beeple, noticed increasing talk in his online circles about a technology called “non-fungible tokens,” or N.F.T.s.

Beeple crap free