Nowadays, there is a trend of having non-fungible tokens auctioned according to scientific information, an environmental disaster, a fascinating art, or monetized future genomics.
The NFT of a digital collage known as Everydays: The first 5000 days that the American artist, Beeple, made was sold for US$69.3 million last March.
The often quirky and bizarre market for NFTs or non-fungible tokens is now booming, from music tracks to cat memes and every kind of digital art. Science is now getting on the bandwagon to own digital files that people can buy and sell online.
Last June 8, the University of California at Berkeley was able to auction NFT with basis on the documents that relate to the work of James Allison, a Nobel prize winner and cancer researcher who received more than $50 thousand. On June 17, a branch of the US Armed Forces, the US Space Force, began selling a series of NFTs that feature images of space iconography and augmented-reality satellites.
Until June 30, Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist and inventor of the World Wide Web, has auctioned an NFT that features the original web browser’s source code with the code’s silent video typed out.
Along with that, George Church, a biology pioneer and the company he co-founded in San Francisco, California, Nebula Genomics, advertised that they wanted to sell the NFT of Church’s genome. The church is a geneticist of the Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He helped launch the Human Genome Project famous for its controversial proposals that include the creation of a dating app based on DNA and the resurrection of the woolly mammoth.
Tim Berners-Lee, the Internet pioneer, auctioned the NFT that includes the animated visualization of the World Wide Web’s source code last June.
People have celebrated the fad for NFTs online as it elevated digital art. However, it has simultaneously been derided as meaningless with a huge carbon footprint as massive computing power is needed to sustain it. Arguments on the use of NFTs in science are also heated. Some say it can provide incentives in showcasing science to the people, a new way of raising funds, and a way for people to earn royalties whenever pharmaceutical companies purchase access to their genomic information. Others are saying that NFTs operate in the same way as digital cryptocurrencies as these are only needless energy that purs into the market bubble that could burst. According to Nicholas Weaver, a Berkley’s International Computer Science Institute student, the more you look at cryptocurrency, the more you will realize that it is bonkers.
The NFT Bubble
Blockchain technology is what NFTs use, and it underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to certify the file’s ownership. NFTs get ‘minted’ just like cryptocurrency, and it uses one of the numerous platforms online for it to be included in the tamper-proof blockchain ledger. Usually, it costs tens or hundreds of dollars and is sold online. People can trade and identically buy these certificates as physical collectibles like baseball cards. People can freely view the data or art online and download their original form. The one who believes the NFT will get a verifiable ownership receipt.
The concept of NFTs was born early, around 2010, but it exploded this 2021. Last March, Beeple sold the NFT digital artwork made by Beeple for almost $70 million. Early last May, the NFT market hit a 30-day sales record that is $325 billion. It significantly cooled off last June, but it still seems more than $10 million every week.
According to the University of California, Berkeley’s intellectual-property office’s director of innovation ecosystem development, Michael Alvarez Cohen, he decided to try using NFTs to get funds for their university. Legal papers filed with the university with the faxes and handwritten notes related to Allison’s valuable discoveries were scanned by a team of designers. The artwork known as The Fourth Pillar is available for everyone to see online. The team was able to mint an NFT for the work’s ownership.
On June 8, after a short war of bidding, the NFT was sold for 22 ether (approximately $54,000). The buyer came from the Berkley alumni group known as FiatLux DAO. It was founded days before with the same experts in blockchain who advised on how to make NFT art in Berkeley. They will have the money split between the Berkeley research fund for carbon offsets and the Foundation of the NFT auction site.
Cohen said this interesting combination has shown that historical documents can create art and sponsor education and research, making it a beautiful circle.
Gold Rush on Genome NFTs
The Berkeley team is also creating digital artwork using documents related to Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel laureate among CRISPR gene editing’s pioneers, for an upcoming NFT auction. It is slow because of the need to ensure that art does not infringe her active patent.
Last June, Church and Nebula Genomics had 20 NFTs put up for sale. Each features an artwork according to the likeness of the Church with a limited edition special discount on the whole-genome sequencing service of Nebula. The raised money will get split between the AkoinNFT sales platform, Nebula Genomics, Oasis Labs blockchain company, the Church, and an unnamed charity.
This offering is an excellent step from what they originally advertised. However, since the crypto markets declined in the recent past, they put it on hold to wait for the improvement of market conditions before launching the whole auction.
Having the NFT of the Church’s genome sold was able to provoke bemusement and excitement online. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University, has also planned to auction the NFT of his genome.
Ethical Concerns
For Church’s company, his NFT provides a more serious purpose as a trial run. Nebula Genomics is now using blockchain technology to enable 15 thousand individuals who have whole genomes sequenced to provide temporary access to their information to specific users, like pharmaceutical companies looking for links between diseases and genes. In the future, NFTs can be handy in allowing customers to earn money from these kinds of exchanges.
Some other companies are doing the same experiments on how customers can sell genomic information on the blockchain marketplaces. The idea is to provide users with more control of their data so the profits will directly go to individuals to encourage more people to sequence their genomes.
Researchers of AI are embracing Bitcoin technology as it can share medical information. However, some note that they can achieve these goals even without NFTs. For Vardit Ravitsky, a bioethicist at the University of Montreal in Canada, there can be a problem selling data. There are now so many debates if people should be allowed to earn money from sperm donation or other biological resources. According to Obbad, there are a lot of “open questions.” The proposal of selling an NFT that features the genome of the Church can be a good starter for conversations.
