On July 4, Candy Digital, the official NFT online auctioneer for Major League Baseball, sold a digital copy of a landmark speech by baseball legend Lou Gehrig. The July 4, 1939 speech was Gehrig’s formal farewell to baseball after being diagnosed with ALS. It was the League’s first foray in the exciting world of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The opening bid was $ 250. Co-founder of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange Tyler Winklevoss touted it on Twitter. The closing offer was approximately $ 70,400. Tyler Winklevoss bought it as a donation.

On Monday, NFT fans (and perhaps Mookie Betts fans) can bet on a 2020 LA Dodgers World Series ring graphic, made by so-called metaverse artists RTFKT Studios in Los Angeles.

NFTs are digital and audio art snippets sold and traded on exchanges like Bitski in cryptocurrencies, usually, but not always, in Ethereum (ETH). They are part of a new asset, call them virtual assets.

If you are a sci-fi fan and have seen shows like Caprica, you can imagine owning virtual real estate, virtual nightclubs, virtual clothes, virtual art for your virtual apartment. Nothing tangible. But in the make-believe world of virtual reality and the internet, if it’s got the right name, it can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Why is it something I’ll never know but I bought the Enjin part just in case.

“Yes, people play games in virtual worlds where they trade NFTs and some NFT real estate sells for tens of thousands of dollars,†says Adam Chaplin, CEO of DeFi for You in the UK, a platform – peer-to-peer lending form where users can obtain crypto loans while using NFTs, cryptocurrency assets and physical assets as collateral.

I asked him to pay for pretend swords and armor for the geeks of the crypto gamers that Enjin is built around. Not only are they spending a lot of money, but they are making a lot of money, he tells me.

As a crypto investor myself, I hear about this NFT stuff and feel like Indian Jones is stepping into a pit of double-stinged scorpions; thinking, what the hell is going on right now?

“The $ 500 sword… yeah, that’s on the cheaper end of the spectrum,†he tells me. NFTs are cryptographic tokens backed by digital art or audio.

Crypto investors who want to diversify beyond the best coins and even decentralized coins see NFTs as the latest gambling chip. Unlike roulette, where your chances of winning money if you bet even bets or odds are almost 50/50 (unless they land on the two green squares), buying NFT is like betting all your money on double zero.

Unlike alt-coin traders on Coinbase and Bitcoin “hodlers” (hold, misspelled. It’s a crypto typo that has become a new word), NFT is also used for people who actually want to have an audio byte. 10 seconds of the first Beastie Boys recording. Or an original comic book by artist Dilbert Scott Adams. Different exchanges sell different offers, just like the Nasdaq is where you buy Apple stocks, not the NYSE.

“People pay a lot of money for NFTs because the value of those NFTs continues to rise. They hope to make money on high-risk, high-yield digital assets. They are also collectable, so some people could literally burn money to have a collector’s item, â€says Chaplin. “There are a lot of millionaires in crypto, and frankly speaking, a lot of them are geeks who will spend money on a digital sword.”

To the true NFT supporter, NFTs are more than just a swap for coins or random artwork.

“In the near future, I think NFTs will also disrupt sales in real estate and other markets. Virtual goods are just the first step on this path, â€says Grigory Rybalchenko, CEO of EmiSwap (ESW), an automated cross-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) marketplace complemented by the ESW Token. The Young DEX broke through a stranded $ 1.5 million total value days after its sales on the launch pad. Repeat: a few days. Second repetition: these are imaginary objects in an imaginary world.

Imagine Jim Cramer trying to figure this out. Or your financial advisor at Ameriprise.

For investors, EmiSwap pays a return by staking, cultivating and using utility NFTs for investors looking for the risky crypto equivalent of a dividend.

Crypto investors in the NFT space should probably focus on key trends in the top gaming, sports, and creative industries, industry players tell me. It’s as easy to guess if an NFT is going to be worth a dime as it is to guess if the roulette money ball will land on … double zero.

ESW launched at $ 0.19. It rose to almost $ 0.90. Now it’s at $ 0.09.

Unlike traditional crypto, understanding the trends in the NFT collectibles market is essential for making money buying NFT in the future. The other way is to invest in NFT platforms, or just buy ETH.

For creators who want to sell an NFT, a photographer could tokenize their photos before posting them, which means they can display the time stamp of its release on the blockchain and thus discredit anyone who tries to steal their work, for example.

But the real sexy sector for NFT is real estate.

In February, a digital domain of nine adjacent Genesis virtual plots on the blockchain marketplace and the Axie Infinity gaming platform sold for 888.25 ETH, about $ 1.5 million at the time. Genesis plots are relatively rare plots in the center of the Metaverse Axis. Through its website, Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-inspired universe where anyone can earn the Native Axie Token (AXS) through gameplay. It is currently the number one Ethereum-based game by daily, weekly and monthly active users, so far generating more than 6,400 ETH in revenue (over $ 2 million), notes the Wall Street intelligence firm. McAlinden Research Partners.

Flying Falcon, the crypto-baron who bought it, said on his Twitter page: “We are witnessing a historic moment; the rise of digital nations with their own clearly defined and irrevocable property rights systems. The Axie land has entertainment value, social value, and economic value in the form of future resource flows.

“Land and property can be split with NFTs so that investors can buy part of a wind farm, mansion, New York apartment, or beachfront villa and sell the NFT at a profit later – this opens the door to investors who cannot afford to invest in real estate, but who can now do so by buying a fraction of a property, represented by an NFT, â€explains Chaplin. DeFi For You strives to bring this to crypto investors.

Are we going to go full virtual reality with fake stuff like a fake bust of Lou Gehrig, or an audio clip of Elvis or some other prominent celebrity, probably lost on my laptop?

Will we own virtual real estate for sale to online businesses?

And then, isn’t it already? Remember when buying website URLs was a business?

“We are doing it,†says Rybalchenko. He remembers. “It’s already a part of our reality in some ways and will continue to grow in the years to come. Investors get their best deals when they enter the space as early as possible. The earlier you are in adoption, the higher your ROI. Statistically speaking, pioneers in any industry get the most returns.

Everyone is trying their luck in this.

I’ll put $ 100 on the double 00 and get myself a Bacardi and Coke, please.

The Chatex crypto exchange is running its 99 NFT Robot Challenge now. You can win a Tesla S if you bid for their robot graphic art – pink, camouflage, ground. They position themselves as “an example of art for a new era, the metaverse, which can become a significant example of the formation of a new reality of our perception of creativity in the future”, explains Leonid Bugaev, vice- chatex communications president.

As part of the challenge, each day for 99 days a unique set of ever-expanding “metaverse of robots†tokens are placed on the Rarible site. Each of these sets consists of a different number of copies – from 9 to 99, if anyone wants to buy them for whatever reason. Well, you can win a Tesla, so there you go.

“I urge people to do their own research because the nature of investing is that it comes with risk,†Rybalchenko says. “There is always a chance that you will make bad investment decisions, especially in an as yet unfamiliar and emerging market. But that’s the learning curve, â€he says. “You have to go through this to make good investment decisions later. “