Recently, a series of Discord scams has caused NFT owners to worry about who they’re actually dealing with.
If you don’t know what an NFT is, don’t worry – they’re as confusing as they sound. NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token, and they “can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items”. They use blockchain technology to establish ownership over an item like a digital image.
Some users on Discord have reportedly attempted to scam NFT owners out of their tokens. NFT enthusiast Farokh warned people on Twitter about “several scams happening on Discord”, saying they should “question everything”.
Other NFT owners have pointed out the situation too, and are giving warnings to others about the scams.
NFTs And Energy
There have been concerns over the use of NFTs due to their impact on the environment. Due to how difficult it is to keep NFTs secure, machines are used to solve complex puzzles, and these machines churn through energy. According to The Verge, “when someone makes, buys, or sells an NFT using Ethereum, they’re responsible for some of the emissions generated by those miners”.
One way NFTs try to subvert their impact on the environment is by “offsetting” the carbon footprint, but its unlikely this is actually an effective method. NFTs are incredibly inefficient when it comes to energy, so this offset would need to be pretty large.
Many people have already purchased NFTs, sometimes dropping thousands upon thousands on a single image. And if that sounds insane to you, well, you’re probably right.
What do you think about NFTs? Let us know on our social media channels.
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Featured Image Credit: Discord