Cannabis NFTs: What are They and Where to Buy Them?
As two of the largest burgeoning industries in the world right now, cannabis and NFTs seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. With the legal cannabis industry grossing over $37 billion in 2021 and the NFT market valued at almost $25 billion the same year, it's no wonder that cannabis companies around the world are jumping on the NFT bandwagon.
But how exactly do these two industries fit together? Keep reading to find out more about NFTs in general and where you can invest in the top cannabis NFT projects right now.
What is an NFT?
Let’s skip the technical jargon and get to the point: NFTs are a type of digital asset, short for non-fungible tokens. This means that each NFT is completely unique. For example, dollar bills are fungible items, but if a one-dollar bill was signed by someone famous, it would then become non-fungible.
Although NFTs are stored on a blockchain, just like cryptocurrencies, they’re not interchangeable with each other. NFTs can be anything from digital artworks to music and GIFs, but they can also be very useful in replacing documents such as certificates and/or legal papers.
For a digital asset to become an NFT, it has to go through a blockchain publishing process called minting. NFTs are nearly impossible to hack, making them much more secure than almost any other form of asset.
Why are NFTs Valuable?
If NFTs are essentially just digital pictures, audio, or similar, what makes them so valuable? The truth is that most NFTs are valuable simply because they’re one-of-a-kind collector's items. Their value lies in their scarcity, not necessarily in any form of tangible worth.
Along with their scarcity, NFTs are valuable because they’re authentic, as they cannot be replicated or distributed like old-school digital assets. If you buy an NFT, you will have surety that the item is an authentic work of an artist or company.
They can also hold value in what they do for people, in that some NFTs offer utility value with their digital assets. This can include community memberships or status, live event entrances, or access to exclusive content.
Pros and Cons of Investing in NFTs
While cannabis NFTs are one of the most up-and-coming investments, they come with their own risks and benefits. Let’s take a look at both.
Pros:
- Allows full ownership over an asset with blockchain encoding
- Can be made in limited quantities to provide value to digital assets
- Provides a unique digital fingerprint to ensure authenticity
- High security with blockchain technology
- Provides new ways for artists to share and monetize their work
- Great for collectors!
Cons:
- Minting an NFT is too expensive for many artists
- Requires good technological understanding, limiting its accessibility
- Collectables are purely digital, lowering their appeal for some collectors
- Minting NFTs is an energy-intensive process impacting the environment
- The market still experiences fraud and scams
- Higher risk of investment without regulation
How Do NFTs Prove Ownership?
When an NFT is published on the blockchain – a decentralized digital ledger – it is encoded with all the details of where it came from and who owns it. There is virtually no way of disputing or hacking ownership of an NFT, which is one of the main perks of owning a non-fungible token.
Once the NFT is minted, the person uploading it is issued a private key representing the NFT. This key is a “secret code” to verify its ownership. Only the owner should have access to this code, giving them the sole rights and means to transfer ownership of the NFT to a buyer.
How are NFTs and Cannabis Related?
Now that you better understand what NFTs are, how do they tie into the cannabis market? Well, just like any other product or company using NFTs, businesses or artists within the cannabis niche can create and sell weed NFTs.
This means people can invest in NFTs within an industry that they care about and love. Moreover, cannabis breeders can use NFTs to register and authenticate ownership over strains that they themselves create.
Where Can I Buy Cannabis NFTs?
So you want to buy a weed NFT but don’t know where to look? First, you’ll often need to own cryptocurrency in order to pay for the cannabis NFT you choose. Secondly, you’ll need to decide which platform to use. The top NFT sales platform selling cannabis NFT projects is OpenSea, but you can also find them on platforms such as Binance and Bitsky.
If you’re interested in finding out about some of the most exciting projects where cannabis and NFTs intersect, take a look at the below NFT cannabis projects.
Crypto Cannabis Club: An Immersive Cannabis Community
One of the pioneers bridging the gap between cannabis and NFTs, Crypto Cannabis Club has built a community for cannabis enthusiasts wanting to immerse themselves in the Metaverse.
The club offers memberships for buyers of their exclusive Crypto Cannabis Club NFT collection, dubbed NFTokers. This opens a space for like-minded collectors and cannabis connoisseurs to digitally connect as well as breed digital cannabis strains in the Metaverse to enter into online cannabis cup competitions.
Blazed Cats: Stoner Cat Tokens for Mental Health
Another weed NFT project currently making waves is Blazed Cats. This project started out as stoner cat-themed digital artwork but has since gained tremendous backing from dedicated celebrity support, including Mila Kunis.
Now, each Blazed Cats NFT works as a token to watch the cartoon series created by experienced producers, including some from Toy Story 2 and others. However, the best part is that the project has donated 100% of future royalties from the project to Mental Health America.
BitCanna: Cannabis’s Own Crypto
If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cryptos like these are a great way to make discreet online payments, such as when buying cannabis seeds or other weed-related products that banks might block.
BitCanna is a new cryptocurrency aimed at enabling transactions between customers and companies in the cannabis industry directly. It’s a cryptocurrency for cannabis enthusiasts who want to keep their weed-related purchases discreet and safe.
MonsterBuds: A Virtual Cannabis Universe
An NFT for cannabis doesn’t have to stop with a basic JPEG, right? MonsterBuds brings fun cannabis cartoons and gaming into one weed NFT universe. You can buy cannabis strains from seeds and watch them grow into mystery strains that you can collect, breed, and even smoke. Who would’ve thought that the future of the cannabis industry lies in NFT smoking weed games?
Much like many other up-and-coming cannabis NFT projects, MonsterBuds is set to continue expanding and offering more for their supporters, including an online community, RealVerse integration, and more.
Cannasaur: Stoner Dinos With a Purpose
Cannabis NFT art with a purpose, Cannasaur is rolling out an incredible initiative with its profits by selling adorable cannabis-inspired dinosaur NFT artwork. They have released 4,420 stoner dino NFTs, each selling for approximately 0.05 Ethereum.
However, what makes this NFT stand out from the rest is its philanthropic efforts in raising funds to support the release of nonviolent cannabis prisoners now that the cannabis legalization status has shifted.
Are NFTs Bad for the Environment?
In a nutshell, NFT minting can be taxing on the environment because the process is energy-intensive, using approximately 48 kg of CO2 per token. From there, selling and minting more artwork increases this amount, making the process of selling artwork via the blockchain far less sustainable than physically mailing a print of the same piece.
Every transaction that occurs on the blockchain requires energy, including buying and selling cryptocurrencies. However, there’s a growing list of eco-friendly crypto coins, including SolarCoin, Nano, and Powerledger (POWR). This shows that there’s hope for NFTs to become more eco-friendly in the future.
NFT Scams
Just because the world of crypto is growing at an alarming rate and is largely dubbed as “unhackable” doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there trying to make a quick buck, only to ditch the scene once your money’s in their pocket. The NFT industry is still rife with scams.
Because the NFT market is largely unregulated, there is much room for fraudulent people to figure out ways to trick you. Some of the most common scams you could face include counterfeit NFTs, pump-and-dump scams, bidding scams, and phishing.
We advise you to stay vigilant when investing in any crypto or NFT item. Never give out your private keys to anyone, either in person or online. Keep your keys safe at all costs, and make sure to research the validity of any projects you like.
What Does the Future Hold for Cannabis NFTs?
With all the pros and cons in mind, nothing will stop the growth of cannabis NFTs, so why not join in on the fun? The Metaverse is quickly expanding and unfolding into something worth investigating, and weed NFTs are a great starting point for potheads.
Take a look at some of the authentic cannabis NFT projects listed in this article or check out the OpenSea platform to find more.
Herbies Head Shop expressly refuses to support the use, production, or supply of illegal substances. For more details read our Legal Disclaimer.
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