I've been thinking about creating NFTs of my photography and other digital works  to help support my art practice. There's some appeal of a new digital marketplace that I can upload 50 of my artworks to be sold into a whole new world without having to create prints or give  50% to a gallery or slog through the algorithms on social media and other saturated online marketplaces. Like anyone else my ears pricked up at the idea of royalties forever if my work was traded digitally amongst a much broader audience than that of the elite art market. As far as I can understand, NFTs or non-fungible tokens are digital assets sold on the internet without a standardized value assigned to them. They are the latest way for art to be sold as a commodity using block-chain technology. The certificate of authenticity is the most important aspect to the NFT trade. This certificate is verified by the same global computer system that mines cryptocurrency.   Originally, crypto and block chain technology was purported to disrupt the current system of centralized financial control of government, banks and corporations with the digital ledger that was verified through the global computer system. The decentralized ideology is also an appealing part of digital currency and NFTs. With NFTs specifically the ideal is that artists can sell their work on this world wide platform, bypassing the dictatorship of the art world's elite museum, gallery and auction house syndicate. When Beeple sold a jpeg of a collage of all of the digital art he ever created for 60 million dollars, it started an NFT creating frenzy and stoked the hunger for the volatile market of cryptocurrency again. The problem is that the global computer system was designed with the same inefficiency as capitalism in terms of resource extraction and competition driving profit or results. The global computing system is made up of thousands of electricity hungry computers who all compete to verify the certificate of authenticity within the block chain. Only one "winning"computer verifies, but thousands run burning up fossil fuels in our antiquated, capitalist driven system. The more hype for NFTs, the bigger the market and the more the computers run. It is  once again a failing system because of the finite use of non-renewables that adds to a climate crisis that is ramping up. Additionally anyone can create a token and any legitimate digital art market that could exist is swamped with meaningless dross also just burning up energy and space.
So what's the solution?
First, the global computer system needs to be reformed so that it isn't based in competition, resource waste and inefficiency. Perhaps AI can be integrated to make it more efficient in a way that is synergistic.
Second, computers need to be designed in a way that generates energy instead of just using it. Systems need to be connected. Imagine if every time a token is verified, energy is created and stored in a battery.
Thirdly, Crypto and NFT markets must pay a percentage of any transaction to regenerative practices that sink carbon and must use renewable sources of energy only.
Fourthly, it should be cost prohibitive for just anyone to create an art based NFT. There must be a regulatory body that decides a minimum of artistic integrity and practice in order to be make it cost efficient for artists and have some kind of container in the digital art market.

With reform and right practices we can continue to innovate the technology to change the world and create more inclusive opportunities for artists but it needs to be done with a collaborative, regenerative mindset that prioritizes the environment otherwise continued growth means destruction is inevitable.