What do you think the world still misunderstands about NFTs?
Matt Lim: A lot of people still don’t understand the value of it—and part of this misunderstanding has to do with the underlying technology. To understand NFTs, it’s helpful to understand blockchain technology—but simply put, NFTs are the best way to represent digital assets. Digital assets were a thing before NFTs, but compared to their web2 counterparts, NFTs are far easier to buy, sell, and display.

People also don’t understand that there are a lot more applications and opportunities in the space besides just selling really expensive art and collectibles. There are many inherent advantages to the technology around ownership and identity, and as we move more towards a digital world, more and more use cases will pop up.

How does Formfunction differ from existing NFT platforms?
ML: The main difference between us and big NFT marketplaces like OpenSea or Magic Eden is that we’re really focused on helping independent artists and creators make a living with NFTs. And beyond the marketplace, we want to build a support system for artists with things like community management, analytics, and even fundraising for longer-term projects. That last idea is something we’re really excited about. A lot of artists want to create something bigger, like a short film or a comic book, and we think NFTs are a really good fundraising vehicle to make those kinds of creative projects happen.

How have NFTs challenged our traditional measures or definitions of art?
ML: Usually when people think of buying art, they’re thinking of buying a painting or a print—and for artists, that’s not always the easiest thing. It’s hard to ship a painting and in order to make prints, you have to connect to some third-party service that will produce and ship it. NFTs allow artists to produce their work and not need to go through the process of making something physical or printing it or shipping it. They sell their art for the art’s sake. And I think that’s super cool.