A growing trend online and possible new revenue stream or artists is through NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.

WordPlay T. Jay is just getting into possibly using the system, and he’s explaining it to hopefully help other artists understand what they are and how to use them.

An NFT is a digital certificate of authenticity stating that whatever piece of digital content owned is legitimate, be it music, art, merchandise, tickets, or even tweets or GIFs.

NFTs operate like Bitcoin in a way, in that they are authenticated by block chain, which is a digital way of securing transactions. NFTs basically say you can’t trade the item for something of equal value, like if you have a valuable painting, you can trade it for money, but once you do so, you no longer have the painting as well as the money.

As complicated as it seems, why should artists care?

In short, they should care because NFTs are an emerging way to make money, and royalties form them are lifetime.

NFTs can add value to music through rarity, like if someone has the original session tapes for a certain song or album. That rarity, even when distributed, never goes away because there is only one original — one NFT.

Royalties for NFTs are a lifetime revenue stream, possibly paying more than Spotify, and NFTs can provide new and supplemental revenue for artists, even or things they may not see the value in at first, like session tapes.

So, how do you get an NFT?

In short, it’s complicated. The process involves finding a website to post the content, then creating a coin wallet to handle transactions and fees, then funding that wallet with actual USD, then minting and selling the NFT.

T. Jay gives an example of himself creating an NFT, and has links to more thorough explanations of how NFTs can be used to create revenue, in the video below!