NFTs, their ownership, and the technology that drives them has been big news in the last few years.

Amongst the non-owner crowd, there’s a common question that surfaces: “So what do you actually do with the NFT after you buy it?” 

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Most NFTs are 2D images or GIFs. You can show off your digital items to your friends, or swap NFTs with someone else online. Most of the time, unfortunately, that’s the end of it. The value of your prized NFT is stuck in the Metaverse, and any internet passerby is free to screenshot your image as a copy.

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It doesn’t have to be this way! Buying an NFT is just the start of your journey. NFT owners – whether you’re a sole collector or representing a brand or company – can make quick, repeatable video content to protect their intellectual property and monetize their NFTs beyond the Metaverse. With these videos, you can even create NFTs of your NFTs. 

The Bored Ape Yacht Club, a popular group of NFT avatars. Image credit: Rolling Stone.

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What is an NFT?

If you aren’t familiar with NFTs, you’re not alone. Let’s get back to basics.

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NFT stands for “non-fungible token.” An NFT, in some cases, is a unique digital asset such as a photo, video, book, playing card – that can be owned. Their value is supported by blockchain cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. The Verge wrote up a really effective explainer article on NFTs if you’re looking for more background.

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The types of NFTs we're talking about here are digital characters, such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club or Lazy Lions collections. We’ll focus our conversation on visual object NFTs, even though, yes, NFTs can come in many different formats.

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Purchasing an NFT is just the beginning

Hypothetically, if you owned the Mona Lisa, you could monetize your ownership by hosting an exclusive art show, or leasing the painting to someone else for their own use. Your revenue streams could come from ticket sales, leasing fees, photo ops, and merch.

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The same logic can be applied to an NFT. Starting with a static image or GIF, Aquifer lets you create a dynamic, animated video of your digital character object. From there, you can use that animation in many different ways. Yeah, you could bring your character or object into a massively multiplayer game, or a 3d world.. But that’s a niche audience for early adopters; at this point in time, most people are still mostly consuming video.

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The best way to show off your NFT is by meeting your audience where they are – on social media and video platforms. NFT ownership might be a novel concept for the general public, but the concept of sharing media like movies and designs, however, is very common.

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Video content born from your NFT can be used for ads, or you could even create NFT spin-offs to sell as virtual “merch”. 

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Over here at Aquifer, our technology is designed to allow anyone (regardless of skill), to make cinematic animated movies. And that includes NFTS. Here's Aquifer's Desktop App creating a video for a mutant ape.

This image shows KKCR's mutant ape.

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Stealing Mickey Mouse

You own your NFT, because your purchase is recorded in the blockchain. People can, however, create a copy of a static NFT by screenshotting or “right clicking” and saving.

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This running joke about screenshotting NFTs is only common because the most well-known NFTs are images of animals or characters. Now, imagine if your NFT was turned into a series of entertaining animated videos. Sure, someone could take a static screen grab, but if you’re actively making and publishing content with a 3D character, it’s difficult to steal the essence of what makes it entertaining.

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Let’s use Mickey Mouse and Disney as an example. You could save a picture of Mickey Mouse to your phone, but that doesn’t mean you own Mickey, because someone else has the rights and is making dynamic animated content with that character.

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It's worth noting that the IP ownership, and what you can do with it, can vary per NFT, but that's worth a separate post in itself.

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Gaining valuable IP beyond the Metaverse

We think NFTs, at their best, are great original art. Your original digital artwork is meant to be shared, repurposed, and shown off.

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Aquifer lets you easily bring your NFT into the 3D world, and you don’t need to be an expert! Without using code, we give you the option to animate your character or object, add music, let it talk, make it dance, etc. Some of the most popular animated characters use Aquifer to tell stories, so it makes sense that your NFT character should be on Aquifer!

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TL;DR

NFTs aren’t going away – there’s value beyond the hype. They offer a creative way to own digital things, share artwork, decentralize ownership in the Metaverse, and power creativity in the next evolution of the internet, Web 3.0. 

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Ownership should be more than staring at a static image on a screen. Creating video content with your NFT allows you to harness the power of your digital property, and it can be a launching point for broadly-reaching IP and monetization.

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