Forking NFTs
Anyone who has been in the ‘crypto world’ for a while will have come across the term forking. When the developers behind bitcoin had a difference in opinion on how to take Bitcoin forward there was a split. Bitcoin forked, it split into 2 different directions, this is how Bitcoin Cash came about. A fork in the road that split the network into 2.
“If block validators cannot agree on the updates proposed by Group A or Group B stays the course, then the network is split in two, and we get two different blockchains that begin at the same block and then go on separately. This is what we call a hard fork.” — Algorand
When there is a split in the general consensus held by the developers of most blockchains we can expect a fork, another example of this was when Ethereum split, creating Ethereum Classic. Most blockchains will inevitably fork, unless the humans behind the chain never have differences in opinion.
NFTs used to secure digital signatures from artists can have value. The artists are staking their name and reputation on selling their signature in correspondence to an artwork they have created. This allows for scarcity and rarity to exist in relation to an NFT created by an artist.
When a blockchain hard forks, meaning the developers can’t agree on the same direction, duplications of every NFT minted on that particular chain will be created when the chain splits into to 2. In an industry that values rarity this is not great. When an artist puts their name and reputation on a NFT/blockchain they should be able to do so in the knowledge that duplications will never be made. Let’s say in 100 years, most blockchains will of forked multiple times creating endless copies of NFTs, while there will only ever be one ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’.
Algorand is a blockchain that saw the problem in hard forking and decided to develop a chain that will never fork. This makes Algorand ideal for a secure NFT market to develop. When an artist mints an NFT on Algorand they can be assured that if that NFT was minted as a 1/1 then in 100 years it will still be a 1/1.