Technologies

Why Tiger Woods, Tom Brady and others are joining in on the NFT craze

Tiger Woods is the latest to sell digital collectibles as NFTs. But how much are they going for nowadays? We’ll explain.

You’ve probably heard about NFTs, short for nonfungible tokens. But what exactly are they? It’s a new type of digital asset similar to cryptocurrency that can cost you a lot of money. The craze began in 2017, and since then, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, rock legends Kings of Leon and even Tiger Woods have sold NFTs for a pretty penny (more below).

But what exactly are you buying when you purchase an NFT? It’s not a collectible that you can keep in your dresser drawer, like Pokemon cards, a comic book or paintings. They’re entirely digital and are tied to almost anything — a video highlight, a meme or even a tweet.

If this doesn’t make much sense to you, well you’re not alone.

In short, NFTs offer a blockchain-created certificate of authenticity for a digital asset or piece of art. The interest has created a digital market that boasted $250 million in sales in 2020, with NFTs reaching new levels of hype from Visa, Warner Music Group and Nike. Even toilet paper companies are in on the latest cryptocurrency wave. Still confused? We’ll break down what NFTs really are, how much they cost and how you can get in on the latest bidding wars.

What’s an NFT?

This is the part that takes a bit of open-mindedness. An NFT is a unique digital token, with most using the Ethereum blockchain to digitally record transactions. It’s not a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum, because those are fungible — exchangeable for another Bitcoin or cash. NFTs are recorded in a digital ledger in the same way as cryptocurrency, so there’s a listing of who owns each one.

What makes an NFT unique is the digital asset tied to the token. This can be an image, video, tweet or piece of music that’s uploaded to a marketplace, which creates the NFT to be sold.

Do I own the asset if I own an NFT?

Nope.

That’s the real kicker to understanding the whole concept. The person who buys the NFT doesn’t own the actual asset.

«NFTs challenge the idea of ownership: digital files can be reproduced infinitely and you do not (usually) buy the copyright or a license when purchasing an NFT,» said Jeffrey Thompson, associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

For example, the creator of the Nyan Cat meme sold an NFT of it for $590,000. The person who bought the token owns the token, but doesn’t actually own the meme. That still belongs to the creator, who held onto intellectual and creative rights.

What the owner of the token has is a record and a hash code showing ownership of the unique token associated with the particular digital asset. People might download Nyan Cat and use it on social media if they want, but they won’t own the token. This also means they can’t sell the token as the owner can.

Why are NFTs so expensive?

As with physical collectibles such as Beanie Babies, baseball cards and toys, there’s a market for NFTs. The buyers tend to be tech-savvy individuals who understand the idea of wanting to purchase digital goods and likely made a killing this past year with cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, for example, went from just over $100 last March to a current price of about $3,400. In some cases, buyers are just flexing their digital wallets to show off how much crypto they have, but for others, there’s a deeper interest.

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«Specifically for art-related NFTs, there is a huge surge in demand due to their novelty and creativity of early artists,» Jason Lau, chief operating officer of crypto exchange OKCoin, said in an email. «Whether it’s a physical work with an attached NFT (think of it as a digital autograph and proof of veracity), or an entirely digital work (where the NFT is the art), this new medium is opening new ways for collectors and artists to explore their relationship with the artwork itself.»

It’s also great for the artists, says Lau. By selling digital art directly to those interested, an artist can begin monetizing work without having to try to sell it in a gallery.

What kind of NFTs can I buy?

NFTs can be tied to any digital asset. Anything you see online can be an NFT — music, social media posts, clip art and more. Today, Sorare released its «Super Rare» Lionel Messi digital trading card that’s currently bidding at €29,992.75, equivalating to over $35,000. Sorare also announced that it raised $680 million for its next-level sports fantasy game. The funding is currently led by SoftBank.

And today, Tiger Woods will sell thousands of digital collectibles on Autograph on the DraftKings marketplace. The second collection will launch on Sept. 28. Autograph is co-founded by Tom Brady, another athlete in the NFT market.

But NFTs are going far beyond sports. Recently, Fortune gave its readers a chance to get in on the NFT craze. The company sold 256 copies of the limited edition cover from the graphic artist Pplpleasr for Fortune’s August/September magazine on OpenSea. The copies sold out within five minutes starting at $1 Etherum (estimated $3,000). But the NFTs were available for resale at three times the cost.

And in August, a clip art of a rock, better known as Ether Rock, was sold for $400,000 Etherum (estimated $1.3 million). Two weeks ago, it was valued at $97,716. And in August, Visa announced its NFT CryptoPunks purchase for $150,000 in Ethereum. The financial corporation believes that NFTs play a big role in the «future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce.» And Vine’s co-creator, Dom Hoffman, is reportedly inventing a new way to gamify NFTs with his fantasy gaming console, Supdive.

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As the hype for NFTs grows, expect more digital assets to come up for sale and bring in some big money.

Where can I buy or sell an NFT?

While you may not want to jump right in bidding six figures, there are multiple NFT marketplaces out there to check out, with Opensea being the biggest. Buyers can search for art, domain names and random collectibles to bid on without having to break the bank. And Woods’ digital collection is one of the many NFT collections available on DraftKings marketplace, including Tony Hawk’s collection.

On the other hand, if you want to sell an NFT of your art, you can use NFTify, the Shopify NFT store, to sell NFTs without creating your own store. You’ll also need a MetaMask account to get going. And Burberry recently announced a partnership with Mythical Games to gamify buying, selling and collecting toys as NFTs through the Blankos Block Party game. CNET’s own Chris Parker also made a step-by-step guide on how to make and sell your own NFT, in the video below.

What are the downsides of NFTs?

A drawback is the hundreds of dollars in fees required to create an NFT. If you’re making your own token on the Ethereum blockchain, you need to use some Ethereum, which as mentioned earlier is kind of pricey. Then after you make an NFT, there’s a «gas» fee that pays for the work that goes into handling the transaction and that’s also based on the price of Ethereum. Marketplaces simplify the process by handling everything for a fee when an NFT is sold.

There’s also an environmental cost. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum requires computers to handle the computations, known as «mining,» and those computer tasks require a lot of energy. An analysis from Cambridge University found that mining for Bitcoin consumed more energy than the entire country of Argentina. Ethereum is second to Bitcoin in popularity, and its power consumption is on the rise and comparable to the amount of energy used by Libya.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 23, #630

Today’s Strands puzzle is a delicious one, and it might make you hungry. Here are hints, answers and help for Nov. 23, #630.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a delicious one, and it might make you hungry. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Sweet tooth

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Halloween treats.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

STRAND, STRANDS, REDS, REND, SEND, SENDS, TEND, TENDS, RENDS, SANT, RUST

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

DOTS, NERDS, RUNTS, STARBURST, WHATCHAMACALLIT

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CANDYAISLE. To find it, start with the C that’s three letters to the right on the bottom row, and wind up.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 23, #896

Today’s Connections puzzle is a fun mix of categories, with two entertainment sections. Here are hints, answers and help for Nov. 23, #896.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a fun mix of categories, with two entertainment sections. If you need help sorting the words into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: To go light on someone’s punishment.

Green group hint: Where our furry friends live.

Blue group hint: Award-winning director.

Purple group hint: Swedish pop group tunes.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Lenient.

Green group: Animal homes.

Blue group: Oliver Stone movies.

Purple group: Second words in titles of ABBA hits.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is lenient. The four answers are easy, lax, loose and slack.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is animal homes. The four answers are burrow, den, lodge and warren.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Oliver Stone movies. The four answers are JFK, Nixon, Platoon and Wall Street.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is second words in titles of ABBA hits. The four answers are Gimme, Mia, Queen and Trouper.

Technologies

Las Vegas First Responders Lean on AT&T’s FirstNet to Stay Connected During the F1 Race

Amid the chaos of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, I talked to AT&T and first responders about how they plan and operate during events like this.

At the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix race, Rich Johnson can hear the distant percussive blats of the F1 cars racing in downtown Las Vegas, but he won’t get to see them all weekend. And he’s fine with that.

Although he’s in town specifically for the event, his main focus is ensuring that, in the event of any emergencies, first responders can communicate and coordinate effectively. I spent time with Johnson, the associate director of network disaster recovery for AT&T, to learn more about an important piece of the race weekend that most people won’t — and shouldn’t have to — think about.

Johnson oversees teams of people and resources strategically positioned around the race track and throughout the city as part of FirstNet, the First Responder Network Authority, «a private/public partnership between AT&T and the US government to create, maintain and service a nationwide public safety drop-in network,» he explains.

FirstNet operates on Band 14, a patch of spectrum dedicated for first responders so they don’t have to compete for a signal if something happens, even in a wireless-rich environment like a Formula 1 race.

«If our primary communication methods fail, we have backups that we can go to,» said Brian O’Neal, deputy fire chief with the Clark County Fire Department and emergency manager for Clark County. «Typically that involves moving from radio to cellular. When you look at an event like this, where a 3.8-mile track is running through the middle of the city, capacity within that system becomes a concern.»

That’s where FirstNet comes in, enabling every first responder to communicate with one another on that dedicated spectrum, which is not affected by all of the other competing signals.

As I spoke with O’Neal and Johnson, several bright yellow Clark County fire trucks rolled out behind them to be deployed throughout the area. Johnson pointed out that when the event is going on, traffic is even worse because it’s locked down, so ingress and egress is extremely difficult.

«All these fire trucks will end up being in that footprint before it gets locked out,» said Johnson. «And because we are so embedded with public safety, that’s part of the plan. We have our staff and equipment pre-staged throughout the footprint as well.»

One piece of equipment Johnson showed me was a small portable trailer that can be set up by a single person. When it’s activated, a process that takes about 30 minutes, it provides about a mile of FirstNet coverage.

It’s often towed by a larger response communications vehicle, which was also parked at the ready and has a deployable 20-foot mast that can provide cellular to first responders over about a mile-and-a-half radius.

Johnson also took me to the roof of a nearby parking garage, where a portable network tower occupied two parking spaces with a lovely view of downtown Las Vegas and the race track in the distance. It’s up there in «hot standby» mode as a backup to ensure a consistent flow of communication. If needed, it can be activated remotely in a few seconds, using a large dish to communicate with a long-range satellite as the data backhaul.

It’s unlikely the unit will be used during the weekend, but the commitment to multiple redundant systems is why it’s parked in the same spot as it was last year.

Planning for an event like this takes about six months, said Johnson, although much of it came together in four months this year because this is the third Las Vegas Grand Prix where FirstNet has been on hand. Both Johnson and O’Neal reiterated that the technologies and capabilities of these tools are used throughout the year for everyday operations, too. They’re just scaled up dramatically for a planned event like this.

Johnson said AT&T has over 190 assets like these dedicated to FirstNet, with access to over 750 AT&T assets they can use exclusively for public safety if needed.