[sfourdrinier]

They are certificates of ownership.

When you own a NFT and it's in your wallet it shows that you own something. This can be used for membership for example where the owner of that NFT is automatically granted access to ... something...?

There are also smart contracts associated with NFTs... Can encode royalties and other things.

For example a creator of an NFT could encode a 5% royalty associated. This means that when that NFT is sold subsequently the original author will make 5% of the sale price.

Some people are starting to sell NFTs like a commitment to give a % of a particular revenue. It's a digital contract.

But sure. Part of owning a NFT you can often display something... Visual. Because well, we live in a visual world.. and right now it's the foundation of many NFT collections.

It's so much more than just art. The smart contract allow many more use cases in the future to prove that you own something, or are a member of something.

[fl0wenol]

I think the issue is just that NFTs solve a problem that doesn't exist. Any system where an experience is gated by user attestation is necessarily self-contained (asset, payment, user account) to more effectively extract money from participants. No one is federating this, and what would they gain to do so?

There is value in perhaps validation of proof of membership in entities where they have mutual agreements to unlock extra capabilities without having to link their backends, but there are other ways to accomplish the same things... like OAuth.