es or 3D clothing, that can be traded on the Internet. In a recent partnership between Prada and Ubisoft, clothing and camouflage can be purchased that can be used to dress the avatars of characters in the Riders Republic virtual game’s world. Previously, in game environments, you could acquire special weapons or clothing, but such items could only exist in the game. With NFTs, you become the owner of these items and you can take them to other virtual worlds called metaverses. For example, a cool outfit that you won in one game can now be exported to another game or sold. NFTs allow a kind of portability that was not previously possible. However, major brands are creating clothing in the form of NFTs before they can even be used in virtual worlds. It’s a “promise” for the future. Once you’ve purchased the digital clothing, Prada then has to integrate it into all the various virtual worlds, since for the time being, it can only be used in the Riders Republic game’s world. And adapting these purchases for multiple virtual worlds necessarily requires further IT development.
Benoît Couty: In my case, out of a portfolio of about 800 NFTs, 700 are works of art. Other people collect less art and more game items, like football cards. It’s the same principle as Pokémon collections (laughs). There is nothing stopping you printing a digital image and putting it on your wall. 3D files can be deployed in virtual worlds or augmented reality worlds, or simply displayed at home. With a little software, you can place your virtual 3D object on a table at home: you don’t see it directly on the table, but if you look at the table through your phone, we will see the object as if it were in the room. Because NFTs are digital files, they can easily be viewed from any digital device, such as a phone.
Thuy-Tien Vo: And of course, you can put the files on TV screens or screens that are made especially for NFTs. Samsung and a growing number of other companies are developing frames to display digital art at home. These are essentially television screens surrounded by a traditional frame, like a painting in a museum. NFTs are becoming more mainstream and are being displayed in living rooms.
Benoît Couty: Your NFTs are held at a cryptographic address, which is an electronic address that only you can access. But anyone can see your cryptographic address and can see all the NFTs you own. It’s like a traditional museum: people can see the works, take pictures of them and then print them out and display them at home, but they don’t own the originals. We know where the Mona Lisa is, anyone can look at it in the Louvre or on their computer, but it does not belong to us, and we cannot sell it.
With NFTs, everything is public, and completely transparent. There is risk, but it does not come from the blockchain technology. The latter has been in existence for 10 years and was created by Bitcoin. Since then, it has developed enormously, particularly with Ethereum which made the creation and transfer of NFTs more fluid. The blockchain and NFTs started becoming popular in 2015. The technology has been proven to be robust and tamper-proof. However, when you own cryptocurrency, you have an access code which is usually 12 or 24 words. If you lose this access code, or if someone manages to obtain it, they will be able to access your digital asset portfolio. 99% of security breaches are due to consumers not protecting their passwords sufficiently.
Benoît Couty: Thanks to NFTs, artists can sell their works of art without the need for gallery owners. They can sell them very easily because there are no transport or logistics issues: you buy and sell with a click. So, all the usual activity that accompanies the sale of works of art is no longer necessary, it has become superfluous… All the traditional players must now prove their added value or reinvent themselves. The numbers of NFT artists are rapidly growing, two of the most well-known in France are Pascal Boyard (better known as PBOY) and lulu xXX. There are people who create digital art every day, but it’s like tradi