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Why I Just Bought My First NFT, and What I Learned
An NFT of the New York Mets retired player’s “most famous sports contract of all time”
I just bought my first non-fungible token, commonly known as an NFT. If you know me, you may be surprised. I recently wrote a book with Andrew Lo, In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio, where we interviewed ten luminaries, include six Nobel laureates, as we traced the development of modern portfolio theory. A recurring theme in our book is the importance of a buy-and-hold strategy that rely heavily on traditional stock and bond index funds. There’s no mention in the book of NFTs, or cryptocurrencies for that matter. So why did I buy an NFT? Let’s start George Mallory’s quip, when asked why we wanted to climb Mount Everest: “Because it’s there.” I was intrigued with NFTs, wanted to learn more, and wanted to see what the process of buying one was all about. When I was young, I enjoyed collecting sports cards. This particular NFT was sports-related, piqued my interest because of a previous blog I had written about Bobby Bonilla, and it sounded fun. If you want to really learn about something then just do it.
NFTs: The Basics
According to Investopedia, NFTs are “cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other.” Let’s parse…
