HOW A MUSIC NFT AND A CAR VIN ARE THE SAME THING

By Dwight Miller - January 18, 2024
HOW A MUSIC NFT AND A CAR VIN ARE THE SAME THING

Every car made around the world is made with a VIN (a vehicle identification number) that identifies the car as unique despite the fact that the vehicle has the same properties as any other car. Cars  have the same colors, the same engine and every other part the only unique identifier is the VIN.

The move to digital products

In the old days music was sold on physical products called records or albums. Those albums or records were sold on vinyl and then on plastic discs called CDs but because you bought a physical product you thought you owned music when all you really owned was a piece of plastic or vinyl with the rights to listen or play the music on that record.

When MP3s were created music was stored as computer music files  mp3s and music was no longer stored or sold  on a physical device. The one thing MP3 didn’t spawn was an honest way for musicians to make a buck.

 Music labels tried to secure mo3s but every attempt to secure an mp3 was eventually hacked and created free music products.

The end result, stores that once sold records no longer had any product to sell and stores that sold music ceased to exist and so did royalties from record sales.

How does Nft solve the problem?

An Nft is like registering your car but instead of registering the car with a government agency like the department of transportation you register your Nft on what's called the blockchain.

The blockchain has specific characteristics but it assigns what's called a hash number which identifies that Nft as unique.

Along with the hash number that identifies the music as unique (like the VIN does for your car), the blockchain is transparent, which means that nft’s or transactions on the blockchain can be seen or viewed using a blockchain explorer.

Transactions on the blockchain are also immutable. Immutable means that transactions (by the way you're in Nft is called a transaction) can only be added, transactions can't be deleted or changed on the blockchain. The blockchain data is immutable and can't be changed.

The transactions in the blockchain are secured because every node on the blockchain (a blockchain consists of a series of nodes or computers) has a copy of the blockchain. So, the blockchain is duplicated on computers around the world and because there are so many duplicates of the blockchain it's impossible to modify the transaction because of the way the hash is constructed.

So, the blockchain creates a unique hash for your Nft, ensures your Nft is secure by having it on the blockchain on multiple nodes, and the blockchain data is transparent in that it can be inspected or seen using a blockchain explorer.

So in that way an Nft is unique because it's assigns a unique hash for each Nft and the hash is like the VIN on your car.