Opinion: You can buy NFT's of pro cyclists. Here's why you shouldn't.

Cycling
Monday, 07 February 2022 at 17:39
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You may have spotted a discussion today on Twitter regarding NFT's, and a collection of NFT's of pro cyclists. Many questions quickly rise and with good reason, here's a little rundown of the situation.
NFT stands for Non-fungible token. You must have heard this a million times by now but still not understand what that actually is and for good reason, but allow me to explain a little bit further. A Non-fungible token is a unique unit of data employing technology that allows digital content to become logged and authenticated on cryptocurrency blockchains, essentially giving you the rights to this content.
Wha content exactly? In this case, artwork of riders who were present in the Tour de France 2021, small cartoon images. So upon buying, which costs between 0.0005 (1,37€) and 10 ETH (27.303,85€, yes you read it right), you get the rights of this image. You don't actually own the image for yourself, as one can save or screenshot the exact same picture you will buy, but you get the right to say you own it.
Which when you look deeper, is not actually the case, since one needs to have the naming rights to actually own said cartoon and there is nothing that indicates that the creator of his NFT has the naming rights for any team or rider showcased on the list. You can easily see this on other platforms in the cycling world, for example Pro Cycling Manager, the biggest cycling management game in the world, does not own naming rights for several teams. So what exactly do you get from doing this?
At times, NFT's were a tool for small artists to create and sell their own art in a way that would reward them, even though that can at times still be the case, the reputation NFT's carry is that of being a platform in which scammers work with, or at the very least, you won't participate in the scam but you will pay money for something which has no value. What can happen is you buy and afterwards resell for a higher price, possibly benifiting from royalties in the future, but that's a risk you have to take in the first place.
But that is if you actually do it before teams actually see their name is being used, that the people in control of copyrights in cycling actually see what's going on and force these NFT's to stop existing; on what's called the blockchain, that is, as anyone can keep the jpeg file they've saved.
Sure enough then you must've understood that the mere fact that people have noticed the existence of this collection has gotten cycling fans upset. With good reason, nothing indicates that this project is legal and the idea that cash-grab projects get into cycling to the detriment of some is not well received. And this is ignoring the environmental damage that comes from it, and the fact that the value is created by the people who own such tokens so you are in theory just trusting on someone's estimated value of such art.

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