NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: The downside of free NFTs

Dateline: February 11 2024

At heart, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are just tokens, and can be collected, traded, or exchanged for services or other tokens, or for cash. They’re a bit like air miles or loyalty points.

And the tech giants want you to have them. For free. Because NFTs are smart tokens. They can contain coded instructions and collect metadata about who uses them, and how. They can act as gate passes or access cards, both in the real world and on digital platforms.

Now you can get a smart NFT that acts as a super ID, connecting your smartphone to your credit card to your passport to your airline boarding pass ... and a whole lot of other things. Why worry about health insurance numbers and loyalty programme logins, when everything can be consolidated on an NFT?

Remember the old days, when every time you took out a loan, or hired a car, or applied for a foreign visa, or renewed your driver’s licence, or joined a club or signed up for any number of digital services, you had to provide the same old details on a paper form or digital screen, often in person and with proof. And if you changed say, your email address, you’d have to notify all those myriad entities of the change. What a chore.

Now it’s all consolidated, immutable, and secure, and stored in the cloud. And only accessible with your private key. The big tech companies are looking after it for you, and soon you’ll be able to add your DNA data too. That sounds pretty NIFTY to me!

But before you choose Google’s LifeToken or Meta’s MyMeta token, or Apple’s one, ask yourself why they are providing all that convenience, security and service for free. Remember the metadata — your metadata? That’s the real product.

• Published: February 10 2022

I am ether. I am me.

Provable identity is the crypto killer app

Dateline: July 2 2025

There’s a dominant use case emerging for the ethereum blockchain, a killer app that will make crypto as widely adopted as smartphones. And it isn’t money.

It’s all about digital property rights, identity, and ownership. Public blockchains are essentially huge multi-user databases. Decentralised and authenticated by the network itself, they allow anyone with a blockchain address to maintain their user data in a way that is transparent and protected. And being decentralised, your data is safe from search and seizure, even by government and international agencies.

So you can be in control of your own digital destiny, your identity, and your rights of ownership to both digital and physical property. It’s all part of being a sovereign individual, and not relying on institutions and authorities, when it comes to proving that you’re you. Blockchain records are immutable, and can only be updated by adding new blocks to the chain, so everything is recorded and encrypted, by design.

Now I don’t need a passport and a copy of a recent utility bill to identify myself. I can open a bank account, enter into smart contracts, and invest in start-ups in a foreign country; just by sharing my trusted chain data. And of course, I can receive and make payments too.

My biometric data and health records are also securely stored on the network, and I can give access — and revoke it — to parts of my data, to people and applications. Like my doctor, or lawyer, or Siri.

Data, especially personal data, is fast becoming the oil of the 21st century global economy. Now I can control my personal information and identity, and no-one can hijack it and pretend they’re me.

I am ether; I am me.

• Published: July 1 2021