The research is about NFTs: this topic has been chosen since it is not well covered by the literature and by academic studies, giving the possibility to study an innovative and challenging subject. To summarize, a NFT is a digital asset that can represent a virtual or real-world object such as, among others, artworks, collectibles, fashion items... NFTs are created with the same technology of cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, and are bought and sold online, in exchange for cryptocurrencies. In addition, NFTs can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets: they prove authenticity regarding the fact that a person is the sole possessor of it since they are non-fungible, non-interchangeable and unique. The work is composed of 4 different parts: in the first part, the attention is put into understanding in general terms what are NFTs about: what they are, how they are created and their main characteristics. There is a description of their history starting from the beginning to the recent period. Some additional information is then provided about the market of NFTs, by considering the actors, the marketplaces and the market growth during the years. This part can be considered a useful introduction in order to understand better how the whole NFTs ecosystem works. In the second part, a systematic analysis of the most relevant use cases of NFTs has been performed: 7 main clusters to group NFTs have been defined and, for each of them, it is included a brief description, an in-depth analysis of the most important use case and the description of other relevant use cases. The objective of this part is trying to make a bit of clearness on the huge offer of different NFTs outstanding nowadays. The methodological approach that has been used consists of the analysis of the websites and whitepapers of the projects. A whitepaper is the document that describes the project and eventually the long-term goal that the project’s team wants to reach. The third part investigates the psychology behind the success of NFTs. From a methodological point of view, it is based on surveys that involve different actors of NFT’s environment: it considers both the creator of NFT’s tokens and the buyer/collector of them. The objective is understanding why people would be interested in these digital assets and the value they attach to them. Since the topic is not well covered by the literature, surveying should be the best approach to try to understand what the reasons behind the NFT’s success are and why people move their interest from the physical ownership of an object to a virtual one. The surveys that have been developed are two: there are some specific questions for the owners, some specific questions for the creators and some in common. After some more general questions, the survey goes more in depth trying to understand which are the drivers that make the NFTs world appealing for them: among others, they have been asked which are the characteristics that a NFT needs to have in order to be interesting, the things that they most like about the NFTs’ world and the objective they try to reach through the leverage on NFTs: it has been discovered that, collectors’ main objective is to make money by speculating on them, while artists mainly leverage of them with the objective of emerging as artists. After having understood which are the objectives that collectors and designers try to reach and having understood which are the most important difficulties they can encounter, it is defined a business model that can help both actors in overcoming the most important obstacles they can meet. The business model has been designed according to the Business Model Canvas methodology. Since the business model leverages on two innovations that have been introduced with the creation of blockchain, a small introduction has been prepared in order to explain how they work and why they can be leveraged to offer more value.
La ricerca riguarda gli NFTs: è stato scelto questo argomento poiché non è stato trattato molto dalla letteratura e dagli studi accademici, dando la possibilità di studiare un argomento innovativo e sfidante. Per fare un breve sommario, un NFT è un asset digitale che può rappresentare un oggetto virtuale o fisico tra cui, ad esempio, opere d’ arte, oggetti da collezione, accessori della moda.. Gli NFT vengono creati attraverso la stessa tecnologia usata per le cryptocurrencies, la blockchain, e vengono venduti online attraverso pagamenti in crypto. Inoltre, un NFT può essere immaginato come un certificato di proprietà di un oggetto virtuale o fisico: infatti, dimostrano che una persona è il legittimo e unico proprietario di un oggetto, poiché sono non fungibili, non interscambiabili e unici. La ricerca è composta da quattro parti: nella prima parte, l’attenzione è posta sul capire in termini generali gli NFT: cosa sono, come sono creati, le loro caratteristiche principali. È inclusa una descrizione della loro storia, partendo dagli albori fino ad arrivare ai periodi più recenti. È stata inclusa qualche informazione riguardo al mercato degli NFTs, considerando gli attori coinvolti, i marketplaces in cui vengono scambiati e la crescita del mercato durante gli anni. Questa parte può essere considerata come un’introduzione per capire meglio l’ecosistema degli NFTs. Nella seconda parte è stata svolta un’analisi sistematica dei casi d’uso: sono state definite 7 categorie principali che potessero racchiudere gli NFT e, per ciascuna di esse, è stata inclusa una breve descrizione, un’analisi approfondita dello use case più importante e la descrizione di altri use cases rilevanti. Lo scopo di questa parte è cercare di fare un po’ di chiarezza sulla grande quantità di NFT diversi che si possono trovare sui marketplaces. L’ approccio metodologico che è stato seguito consiste nell’ analisi dei siti internet e delle whitepapers dei progetti. La whitepaper è il documento che descrive il progetto e gli eventuali obiettivi a lungo termine che il team del progetto si è prefissato. La terza parte investiga la psicologia che sta dietro al successo degli NFTs. Da un punto di vista metodologico, si basa su dei sondaggi che hanno coinvolto i diversi attori che ruotano intorno agli NFTs: sono stati considerati sia i creatori che i compratori/collezionisti. L’obiettivo è capire perché vi sia un interesse da parte delle persone su questi asset digitali e il valore che gli viene attribuito. Poiché l’argomento non è stato trattato a fondo sulla letteratura, l’esecuzione di sondaggi può essere il modo migliore per capire quali sono le ragioni che hanno portato al successo degli NFT e perché le persone hanno mosso il loro interesse dal possesso di oggetti fisici a quello di asset virtuali. Sono stati sviluppati due sondaggi: ci sono infatti delle domande specifiche per i collezionisti, delle domande specifiche per i creatori e alcune domande in comune. Dopo alcune domande più generali, il sondaggio va più a fondo per capire quali sono i drivers che rendono il mondo degli NFT interessanti per questi due attori: è stato chiesto quali sono le caratteristiche che un NFT deve avere per essere considerato interessante, cosa amano di più del mondo degli NFT e l’obiettivo che cercano di raggiungere attraverso essi: è stato scoperto che l’obiettivo principale dei collezionisti è poter guadagnare speculando su essi mentre i creatori hanno come obiettivo quello di emergere come artisti. Dopo aver capito quali sono gli obiettivi che i collezionisti e i creatori cercano di raggiungere e quali sono le più importanti difficoltà che possono incontrare lungo il percorso, è stato definito un business model che potesse aiutare entrambi gli attori a superare gli ostacoli più rilevanti che potrebbero incontrare. Il business model è stato creato attraverso la metodologia del Business Model Canvas. Poiché il business model sfrutta due innovazioni che sono state introdotte con la creazione della blockchain, è stata preparata una piccola introduzione che potesse spiegare come funzionano e perché possono essere utilizzate per offrire più valore.
A journey into NFTs : the digital revolution of art
ROMERO GRANADOS, LUCIANO SANTINO;RINALDI, LORENZO
2021/2022
Abstract
The research is about NFTs: this topic has been chosen since it is not well covered by the literature and by academic studies, giving the possibility to study an innovative and challenging subject. To summarize, a NFT is a digital asset that can represent a virtual or real-world object such as, among others, artworks, collectibles, fashion items... NFTs are created with the same technology of cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, and are bought and sold online, in exchange for cryptocurrencies. In addition, NFTs can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets: they prove authenticity regarding the fact that a person is the sole possessor of it since they are non-fungible, non-interchangeable and unique. The work is composed of 4 different parts: in the first part, the attention is put into understanding in general terms what are NFTs about: what they are, how they are created and their main characteristics. There is a description of their history starting from the beginning to the recent period. Some additional information is then provided about the market of NFTs, by considering the actors, the marketplaces and the market growth during the years. This part can be considered a useful introduction in order to understand better how the whole NFTs ecosystem works. In the second part, a systematic analysis of the most relevant use cases of NFTs has been performed: 7 main clusters to group NFTs have been defined and, for each of them, it is included a brief description, an in-depth analysis of the most important use case and the description of other relevant use cases. The objective of this part is trying to make a bit of clearness on the huge offer of different NFTs outstanding nowadays. The methodological approach that has been used consists of the analysis of the websites and whitepapers of the projects. A whitepaper is the document that describes the project and eventually the long-term goal that the project’s team wants to reach. The third part investigates the psychology behind the success of NFTs. From a methodological point of view, it is based on surveys that involve different actors of NFT’s environment: it considers both the creator of NFT’s tokens and the buyer/collector of them. The objective is understanding why people would be interested in these digital assets and the value they attach to them. Since the topic is not well covered by the literature, surveying should be the best approach to try to understand what the reasons behind the NFT’s success are and why people move their interest from the physical ownership of an object to a virtual one. The surveys that have been developed are two: there are some specific questions for the owners, some specific questions for the creators and some in common. After some more general questions, the survey goes more in depth trying to understand which are the drivers that make the NFTs world appealing for them: among others, they have been asked which are the characteristics that a NFT needs to have in order to be interesting, the things that they most like about the NFTs’ world and the objective they try to reach through the leverage on NFTs: it has been discovered that, collectors’ main objective is to make money by speculating on them, while artists mainly leverage of them with the objective of emerging as artists. After having understood which are the objectives that collectors and designers try to reach and having understood which are the most important difficulties they can encounter, it is defined a business model that can help both actors in overcoming the most important obstacles they can meet. The business model has been designed according to the Business Model Canvas methodology. Since the business model leverages on two innovations that have been introduced with the creation of blockchain, a small introduction has been prepared in order to explain how they work and why they can be leveraged to offer more value.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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Descrizione: NFT Thesis - Rinaldi & Romero Granados
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/187092