Seoyoung Kim, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Finance and Business Analytics at Santa Clara University where she teaches FinTech and Financial Engineering in the graduate business program.

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Getting Started With Nfts 5

Chapter 1: Introducing Non-Fungible Tokens 7

Beginning at the Beginning: What Is a Non-Fungible Good? 9

Exploring Uses for NFTs 10

Finding Out How an NFT Works 11

Buying NFTs 14

Why buy NFTs 15

NFTs as investments 15

Proceeding on Your NFT Journey 16

Chapter 2: Owning Your Own Nft 17

Where It All Began: Non-Fungible Kitties 18

Blockchain for the masses 18

Not just a passing fad 20

The impact of NFTs 20

The game mechanics of CryptoKitties 23

What's In Your Wallet? Setting Up MetaMask 24

Setting Up Coinbase 26

Creating your Coinbase account 27

Verifying your phone number 27

Adding your personal information 28

Verifying your identity and adding your bank account 28

Adding funds to your wallet 29

Collecting, Breeding, and Selling Your Very Own Non-Fungible (Crypto)Kitties 30

Buying your first CryptoKitty 30

Using the Offer function 31

Breeding your kitties 31

Chapter 3: The Future of NFTs 33

Dissecting the Anatomy of a [...] Million NFT 33

Redefining Property Rights (NFTs Are Not Just about Digital Art and Kitties!) 36

NFTs and Digital Property 37

Music, movies, and books 37

Photos and other digital art 38

Game assets 39

NFTs and Real Property 39

Homes, cars, and nondigital pets 40

Art, jewelry, wine, and other collectibles 41

Imagining the Possibilities 41

Part 2: Buying And Selling Nfts 43

Chapter 4: Getting In On The Nft Game 45

Knowing the Ins and Outs of Buying NFTs 46

Examining the success of early NFTs 46

Thinking about NFTs as an investment 47

Understanding the Risks of Hot Wallets like MetaMask 49

Comparing hot wallets 50

Weighing the pros and cons of hot wallets 50

Uncovering Your MetaMask Wallet 52

Installing MetaMask 52

Securing your MetaMask wallet for Chrome and Firefox 55

Buying Ether for Your MetaMask Wallet 55

Exploring NFT Marketplaces 56

Navigating the OpenSea of NFTs 57

The Nifty Gateway 62

Rarible's decentralized governance 64

Chapter 5: Investing In Nfts 69

Understanding NFTs Are Not Cryptocurrency 70

Introducing NFT Investing 71

Deciding Whether NFT Investing Is for You 72

NFT Investing Strategies for Beginners 73

Valuing your NFT 74

Choosing your strategy 76

Discovering the Best-Performing NFTs 77

Exploring Popular NFT Types 79

Table of Contents v

Digital art 79

Collectibles 79

Games 79

Music 80

Popular memes 80

Reporting NFT Gains and Paying Taxes on NFTs 81

Part 3: Developing Your Knowledge:

A Step-By-Step Guide To Programming

Your Own Nft 83

Chapter 6: What Is Ethereum? 85

Revealing the Ethereum Virtual Machine 86

Ether: The Gas That Fuels Your Transactions 88

The journey of a transaction 89

Compensating the (proof-of-) workers: What's in it for the miners? 91

From happy hour to surge pricing: Determining a reasonable gas price 92

Setting your budget: Is the sky the (gas) limit? 94

Transaction fees 96

The Blockchain: Where It's All Stored and Secured 99

Ethash and proof of work: What makes Ethereum tamper-proof? 100

Miners and nonces and bears - oh, my! 102

How many "confirmations" until I'm actually confirmed? 102

Uncles and orphans 104

Hard forks: Updates to the underlying protocol 105

Smart Contracts Make the EVM Go Round 106

The nascent life