Rarity Rankings of NFTs and Other Collectables

There are spells in the world: incantations that can transform reality through the power of procedural utterances. The marriage vow, the courtroom sentence, the shaman’s curse: these words are codes that change reality. (Finn 90) Introduction As a child, stories on magic were “opportunities to escape from reality” (Brugué and Llompart 1), or what Rosengren and Hickling describe as being part of a set of “causal belief systems” (77). As an adult, magic is typically seen as being “pure fantasy” (Rosengren and Hickling 75), while Bever argues that magic is something lost to time and materialism, and alternatively a skill that Yeats believed that anyone could develop with practice. The etymology of the word magic originates from magein, a Greek word used to describe “the science and religion of the priests of Zoroaster”, or, according to philologist Skeat, from Greek megas (great), thus signifying "the great science” (Melton 956). Not to be confused with sleight of hand or illusion, magic is traditionally associated with learned people, held in high esteem, who use supernatural or unseen forces to cause change in people and affect events. To use magic these people perform rituals and ceremonies associated with religion and spirituality and include people who may identify as Priests, Witches, Magicians, Wiccans, and Druids (Otto and Stausberg). Magic as Technology and Technology as Magic Although written accounts of the rituals and ceremonies performed by the Druids are rare, because they followed an oral tradition and didn’t record knowledge in a written form (Aldhouse-Green 19), they are believed to have considered magic as a practical technology to be used for such purposes as repelling enemies and divining lost items. They curse and blight humans and districts, raise storms and fogs, cause glamour and delusion, confer invisibility, inflict thirst and confusion on enemy warriors, transform people into animal shape or into stone, subdue and bind them with incantations, and raise magical barriers to halt attackers. (Hutton 33) Similarly, a common theme in The History of Magic by Chris Gosden is that magic is akin to science or mathematics—something to be utilised as a tool when there is a need, as well as being used to perform important rituals and ceremonies. In TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information, Davis discusses ideas on Technomysticism, and Thacker says that “the history of technology—from hieroglyphics to computer code—is itself inseparable from the often ambiguous exchanges with something nonhuman, something otherworldly, something divine. Technology, it seems, is religion by other means, then as now” (159). Written language, communication, speech, and instruction has always been used to transform the ordinary in people’s lives. In TechGnosis, Davis (32) cites Couliano (104): historians have been wrong in concluding that magic disappeared with the advent of 'quantitative science.’ The latter has simply substituted itself for a part of magic while extending its dreams and its goals by means of technology. Electricity, rapid transport, radio and television, the airplane, and the computer have merely carried into effect the promises first formulated by magic, resulting from the supernatural processes of the magician: to produce light, to move instantaneously from one point in space to another, to communicate with faraway regions of space, to fly through the air, and to have an infallible memory at one’s disposal. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) In early 2021, at the height of the pandemic meta-crisis, blockchain and NFTs became well known (Umar et al. 1) and Crypto Art became the hot new money-making scheme for a small percentage of ‘artists’ and tech-bros alike. The popularity of Crypto Art continued until initial interest waned and Ether (ETH) started disappearing in the manner of a classic disappearing coin magic trick. In short, ETH is a type of cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. NFT is an acronym for Non-Fungible Token. An NFT is “a cryptographic digital asset that can be uniquely identified within its smart contract” (Myers, Proof of Work 316). The word Non-Fungible indicates that this token is unique and therefore cannot be substituted for a similar token. An example of something being fungible is being able to swap coins of the same denomination. The coins are different tokens but can be easily swapped and are worth the same as each other. Hackl, Lueth, and Bartolo define an NFT as “a digital asset that is unique and singular, backed by blockchain technology to ensure authenticity and ownership. An NFT can be bought, sold, traded, or collected” (7). Blockchain For the newcomer, blockchain can seem impenetrable and based on a type of esoterica or secret knowledge known only to an initiate of a certain type of programming (Cassino 22). The origins of blockchain can be found in the research article “How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document”, published by the Journal of Cryptology in 1991 by Haber, a cryptographer, and Stornetta, a physicist. They were attempting to answer “epistemological problems of how we trust what we believe to be true in a digital age” (Franceschet 310). Subsequently, in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote The White Paper, a document that describes the radical idea of Bitcoin or “Magic Internet Money” (Droitcour). As defined by Myers (Proof of Work 314), a blockchain is “a series of blocks of validated transactions, each linked to its predecessor by its cryptographic hash”. They go on to say that “Bitcoin’s innovation was not to produce a blockchain, which is essentially just a Merkle list, it was to produce a blockchain in a securely decentralised way”. In other words, blockchain is essentially a permanent record and secure database of information. The secure and permanent nature of blockchain is comparable to a chapter of the Akashic records: a metaphysical idea described as an infinite database where information on everything that has ever happened is stored. It is a mental plane where information is recorded and immutable for all time (Nash). The information stored in this infinite database is available to people who are familiar with the correct rituals and spells to access this knowledge. Blockchain Smart Contracts Blockchain smart contracts are written by a developer and stored on the blockchain. They contain the metadata required to set out the terms of the contract. IBM describes a smart contract as “programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met”. There are several advantages of using a smart contract. Blockchain is a permanent and transparent record, archived using decentralised peer-to-peer Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). This technology safeguards the security of a decentralised digital database because it eliminates the intermediary and reduces the chance of fraud, gives hackers fewer opportunities to access the information, and increases the stability of the system (Srivastava). They go on to say that “it is an emerging and revolutionary technology that is attracting a lot of public attention due to its capability to reduce risks and fraud in a scalable manner”. Despite being a dry subject, blockchain is frequently associated with magic. One example is Faustino, Maria, and Marques describing a “quasi-religious romanticism of the crypto-community towards blockchain technologies” (67), with Satoshi represented as King Arthur. The set of instructions that make up the blockchain smart contracts and NFTs tell the program, database, or computer what needs to happen. These instructions are similar to a recipe or spell. This “sourcery” is what Chun (19) describes when talking about the technological magic that mere mortals are unable to comprehend. “We believe in the power of code as a set of magical symbols linking the invisible and visible, echoing our long cultural tradition of logos, or language as an underlying system of order and reason, and its power as a kind of sourcery” (Finn 714). NFTs as a Conceptual Medium In a “massively distributed electronic ritual” (Myers, Proof of Work 100), NFTs became better-known with the sale of Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Christie’s for US$69,346,250. Because of the “thousandfold return” (Wang et al. 1) on the rapidly expanding market in October 2021, most people at that time viewed NFTs and cryptocurrencies as the latest cash cow; some artists saw them as a method to become financially independent, cut out the gallery intermediary, and be compensated on resales (Belk 5). In addition to the financial considerations, a small number of artists saw the conceptual potential of NFTs. Rhea Myers, a conceptual artist, has been using the blockchain as a conceptual medium for over 10 years. Myers describes themselves as “an artist, hacker and writer” (Myers, Bio). A recent work by Myers, titled Is Art (Token), made in 2023 as an Ethereum ERC-721 Token (NFT), is made using a digital image with text that says “this token is art”. The word ‘is’ is emphasised in a maroon colour that differentiates it from the rest in dark grey. The following is the didactic for the artwork. Own the creative power of a crypto artist. Is Art (Token) takes the artist’s power of nomination, of naming something as art, and delegates it to the artwork’s owner. Their assertion of its art or non-art status is secured and guaranteed by the power of the blockchain. Based on a common and understandable misunderstanding of how Is Art (2014) works, this is the first in a series of editions that inscribe ongoing and contemporary concerns onto this exemplar of a past or perhaps not yet realized blockchain artworld. (Myers, is art editions). This is a simple example of their work. A lot of Myers’s work appears to be uncomplicated but hides subtle levels of sophistication that use all the tools available to conceptual artists by questioning the notion of what art is—a hallmark of conceptual art (Goldie

PurposeThis study aims to identify the financial attributes of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as safe havens, hedges or diversifiers against traditional (stock indices, foreign exchange, gold and government bonds) and digital (Bitcoin and Ethereum) assets.Design/methodology/approachThe quantile via moments was utilized, and the data spanned from 20 September 2021 to 31 January 2022. The authors incorporated feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and difference-generalized method of moments (diff-GMM) as the robustness check.FindingsOverall, NFTs offer strongly safe havens, hedging and diversifier attributes against cryptocurrencies, while weak properties for traditional assets. The specific findings are: (1) Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) serves as a strong hedge for Bitcoin during market rise; (2) Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) serves as a strong safe haven against Bitcoin during market bull; (3) Crypto punk (CP) provides strong safe havens properties for gold during market turmoil while serving as a strong hedge against gold and Bitcoin on average and (4) the three blue-chip NFTs are powered by Ethereum blockchain, thus serving as a diversifier against Ethereum.Practical implicationsBitcoin investors are suggested to include NFTs in their investment portfolio to mitigate the losses when Bitcoin falls. Meanwhile, the inclusion of crypto punk is advised for risk-averse investors who invest in gold. NFTs are powered by the Ethereum blockchain, indicating co-movement among them and thus, serve as diversifiers. Policymakers and regulators are suggested to watch closely over NFTs' great development and restructure the existing policies and thus, stabilization of asset markets can be achieved.Originality/valueThe originality aspects are: (1) focusing on the three blue-chip NFTs (i.e. BAYC, MAYC and CP) that are categorized as the largest NFTs by floor market capitalization; (2) testing the NFT attributes (safe havens, hedges or diversifiers) against traditional and digital assets, a.k.a., cryptocurrencies and (3) panel setting on 14 countries with the highest NFT users.

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that represent objects like art, collectible, and in-game items. They are traded online, often with cryptocurrency, and are generally encoded within smart contracts on a blockchain. Public attention towards NFTs has exploded in 2021, when their market has experienced record sales, but little is known about the overall structure and evolution of its market. Here, we analyse data concerning 6.1 million trades of 4.7 million NFTs between June 23, 2017 and April 27, 2021, obtained primarily from Ethereum and WAX blockchains. First, we characterize statistical properties of the market. Second, we build the network of interactions, show that traders typically specialize on NFTs associated with similar objects and form tight clusters with other traders that exchange the same kind of objects. Third, we cluster objects associated to NFTs according to their visual features and show that collections contain visually homogeneous objects. Finally, we investigate the predictability of NFT sales using simple machine learning algorithms and find that sale history and, secondarily, visual features are good predictors for price. We anticipate that these findings will stimulate further research on NFT production, adoption, and trading in different contexts.

Plastic surgery has long prided itself on being perpetually positioned at the cusp of innovation. In a field in which aesthetics, presentation, and tangibility hold such importance, keeping current with trends and developments both inside and outside of the operating room is paramount. Within society at large, it is impossible to ignore the rise of digital and virtual commodities, experiences, and interactions. To this end, a recent phenomenon garnering substantial attention is the nonfungible token. Nonfungible tokens are perhaps best thought of as a variant cryptocurrency through which an individual can assert ownership rights over a unique digital asset.1 These include but are not limited to works of art, images, media files, and even tweets.2 The "nonfungible" aspect of their nature lies in the fact that, unlike other forms of cryptocurrency or physical currency such as the U.S. dollar, a nonfungible token has no interchangeable equivalent. Nonfungible tokens afford their creators an opportunity to generate profit from created content that previously could be freely traded without any material benefit to them. Thus, the benefits of nonfungible token use include its uniqueness and secure, decentralized transaction method on the blockchain. Professionals creating content of all forms have moved quickly to capitalize on the recent nonfungible token craze, particularly as society becomes more heavily invested in the "Internet of things" and cloud-based content management. Although a discrete role for nonfungible tokens in the field of plastic surgery is yet to emerge, it is important to remain cognizant of their possible applications. Science and medicine have already begun to embrace them, with the University of California, Berkeley, generating over $50,000 by selling a nonfungible token based off Nobel Prize-winning cancer research.3 This leveraging of intellectual property to generate income is perhaps the most obvious application for the field of plastic surgery. Hard copy textbooks and journals are rapidly decreasing in popularity, whereas multimedia content such as videos, digital animations, and interactive simulators have demonstrated tremendous capacity as learning tools.4 Creating nonfungible tokens for these digital creations can protect their integrity and facilitate widespread access to such learning tools while still ensuring payment and credit for the original content creators. For example, augmented and virtual reality are becoming more heavily intwined with clinical and surgical training, providing a platform for distance learning with a more hands-on feel and experience than two-dimensional video. For both individual plastic surgeons and larger departments aiming to promote themselves and their craft, the demonstration of novel techniques or the commemoration of pioneering advances present tremendous potential for marketing and distribution in the form of nonfungible tokens. Most academic medical centers already contain homages to landmarks in surgical history in the forms of artwork or museum-like displays. Digitization and distribution as nonfungible tokens would open the door for a much wider audience to interact with and experience such content. In discussing nonfungible tokens, it is imperative to acknowledge the unique position of plastic surgery. Unlike other industries, the treatment of patients who place themselves in our care takes precedence above all else. Personal interests such as marketing and self-promotion must never interfere with this, but by maintaining a keen awareness of these potential pitfalls, plastic surgeons can continue to embrace and benefit from the ever-changing technological landscape. DISCLOSURE The authors have no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this article.

This chapter considers non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which consist of encrypted digital files on a ledger. The purpose of NFTs is to create "unique" digital objects, which can be purchased and sold. Typically, NFTs are at least nominally associated with works of art, often digital works of art. But NFTs can be associated with anything or nothing. This article observes that NFTs have no actual connection to the works purportedly associated with them. The purchase of an NFT need not and usually does not include any interest in any tangible or intangible work, other than the NFT itself. In other words, when you buy an NFT, all you get is the NFT, nothing more. This chapter asks what NFTs could mean for art. They were intended to make transactions in art easier and more transparent. But they can't, because they have no connection to the works in question. However, perhaps NFTs can liberate art from the art market. If the market is satisfied with NFTs, maybe it won't need art anymore, and will finally leave art to its own devices.

The NFT marketplace is only three years old, yet it was already reshaping the worldwide market in 2021-2022. The Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a new and rapidly growing trend changing how digital assets are exchanged. NFTs are digital tokens representing unchangeable ownership of digital goods such as artwork and collectibles and are traded on blockchain-based marketplaces. NFTs generate unique ways to manage, utilize, transfer, design, and save digital data and have undergone a quick surge in numerous applications spanning artwork, entertainment, media, content sharing, and digital crypto commerce. This study aims to look into non-fungible tokens for marketplaces and how they affect global markets. Our main contribution is to prospecting NFTs for Marketplaces. In doing so, we highlight essential questions of NFTs for marketplaces and examine what the taxes and intellectual rights of properties of NFTs are. Further, the paper provides trending information such as total bitcoin price and the mean price per transaction transmitted to NFTs Networks, Most Popular NFT collections transaction volume, the proportion of web traffic to NFTs markets by area, number of active NFT collections on OpenSea.

Blockchain and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are two closely related concepts that have gained significant attention in recent years, particularly in the realm of digital assets and decentralized technologies. Blockchain and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) share a symbiotic relationship, with blockchain serving as the underlying technology that empowers NFTs to function as unique digital assets. NFTs, on the other hand, leverage blockchain technology to address the longstanding challenge of proving ownership and authenticity in the digital realm. By representing unique assets on the blockchain, NFTs solve the problem of digital scarcity, enabling artists, musicians, game developers, and creators to tokenize and sell their digital creations as limited-edition, one-of-a-kind items. The indivisibility of NFTs ensures that each token represents a whole and unique piece of content, be it digital art, music, videos, or virtual real estate. This paper is reviewing the world famous NFT that are traded on popular Blockchain on world famous NFT market place such as Opensea and YoungParrot. Several international brands have their NFT listed on such NFT market places.

What makes NFTs valuable to consumers? Perceived value drivers associated with NFTs liking, purchasing, and holding

As novel digital assets built on blockchain technology with a wide range of applications in the arts, entertainment, fashion and marketing for companies, brand owners and individuals, Non-Fungible Tokens (hereinafter ‘NFTs’) can be anything such as videos, images, audio, documents and even video games. When new disruptive technologies emerge and shake existing rules, regulators must identify inherent risks and develop policy strategies to balance the various interests that innovation touches upon. As the technology matures and its adoption spreads, some of the legal challenges faced by NFTs, as an emerging crypto token, are highlighted in this text as well as the author’s opinion on how to resolve them from a regulatory standpoint. Both the academic literature and several court cases have already tackled the underlying difficulties of regulating blockchain and the particulars of NFTs. Despite NFTs offering a very profitable new market for artists and creators, there are perils and concerns regarding, namely, intellectual property protections, personal property considerations and money laundering vulnerabilities which must be addressed by the legal rules governing blockchain. This paper endeavours to provide an analysis of this triad of problems at a time where there is no comprehensive legal act, in a European and international context, properly addressing what the technology behind NFTs is doing. As such, it intends to contribute to the global issue of defining the right legal rules to properly address them within the digital asset ecosystem of NFTs. Blockchain, Crypto Assets, Digital Assets, Cryptocurrency, Distributed Ledger Technology, DLT, Metaverse, Tokens, Utility tokens, Non-Fungible Tokens, NFTs, Tokenized art, Smart Contracts, Blockchain regulation, NFT regulation, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Trademark, Anti-money laundering, Terrorist financing, AML-CFT, Fifth AMLCFT Directive, GAFI, MiCA

PurposeOver the past years, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have sparked growing interest in the sport industry. NFTs are unique digital assets verified using blockchain technology. Each NFT has a distinct identifier that sets it apart from other tokens, documenting its uniqueness and ownership. NFTs promise innovative growth opportunities by generating revenue via novel products such as digital collectibles which can be owned and traded on dedicated platforms. Despite this promising outlook, it currently seems unclear how sports NFTs should be designed and which features they should offer to align with consumer values, effectively meet their needs and ultimately drive Purchase Intention. This study will therefore attempt to answer the following research question: Which consumer values and consumer needs have a positive impact on PI of sports NFTs? Based on the results, the study seeks to offer advice on concrete characteristics sports NFTs should possess in order to foster mainstream adoption.Design/methodology/approachTo address the current gap in the literature and provide an answer to the research question, this paper uses structural equation modelling exploring the impact of consumer values and consumer needs or wants on purchase intention regarding sports NFTs.FindingsThe results of this study indicate that social needs or wants (SNW) have the strongest impact on purchase intention, as well as on experiential and functional needs or wants. NFTs should therefore possess characteristics that foster community, interaction and connection with other team or athlete supporters while enhancing the overall consumer experience. Incorporating these elements into future NFTs can help sports organizations tap into the social SNW of consumers by providing opportunities for connection, interaction and collective experiences within supporter communities.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the low response rate of Baby Boomers, the results of the study cannot be applied to this cohort. Additional research, potentially using physical in-stadium surveys and targeted specifically at the BB cohort may shed light on their particular values, needs or wants and impact on sports NFT purchase intention. Moreover, Generation Z respondents may statistically be underrepresented in the sample due to the fact that only respondents aged 18 and older were included in the study. Hence, the part of Generation Z, which was born after March 2006 and had not yet come of age at the time of this research, was explicitly excluded from the survey. Results should be applied carefully to the population of sports team or athlete supporters due to the method of data collection which was based on convenience sampling and may therefore not be representative. Since the survey was exclusively administered online, people with no Internet access are not represented in this research.Practical implicationsSports organizations and marketers can leverage the strong impact of SNW identified in this study to position their NFT portfolio accordingly. Using athletes themselves or other influencers as product ambassadors may trigger purchase intention of consumers. Additionally, it is crucial that socializing agents, such as family, friends, colleagues and other team supporters with a strong influence on consumers own or promote NFTs. Marketers can support this adoption process by encouraging testimonials, reviews and user-generated content that showcase how NFTs have positively impacted others. Reaching a critical mass of adoption among supporters as a first step will ultimately impact consumers’ desire to satisfy ENW and FNW as well. Consumers may then recognize the benefits of using NFTs to enhance their overall consumer experience and to make their lives easier, for instance by using NFTs as season tickets or to collect loyalty points they can redeem later.Originality/valueThis study is the first attempt to determine the relationship between consumer values, consumers’ needs or wants and their impact on purchase intention regarding sports NFTs.

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are among the most promising technologies that have emerged in recent years. NFTs enable the efficient verification and ownership management of digital assets and therefore, offer the means to secure them. NFT is similar to blockchain that was first used by the cryptocurrency and then by numerous other technologies. At first, the NFT concept attracted the attention of the digital art community. However, NFT has the potential to enable a plethora of different applications and sce We present a review of the NFT technology. We describe the basic components of NFTs and how NFTs work. Then, we present and discuss the different applications of the NFTs. Finally, we discuss various challenges that the NFT technology must address in the future.

Non-fungible tokens (NFT) have been defined as digital assets that encode items such as art, collectables, and in-game goods. They are often stored in smart contracts on a blockchain and are exchanged online, frequently using Bitcoin. As NFT became increasingly popular in the last few years, decentralized financial assets (DeFi) tokens also started receiving growing attention as financial instruments that differ from NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Based on data on NFTs, DeFi tokens, and cryptocurrency daily prices between January 15th and December 6th, 2021, we examine the correlation between NFTs, DeFi tokens and major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Using the volatility spillover matrix approach by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) as applied by Dowling (2021) and including DeFis into the discussion, we find that there is very limited spillover to and from non-traditional financial markets. Also, DeFi assets appear to be relatively unconnected to cryptocurrency markets. Following the methodology by Karim, Lucey, Naeem and Uddin (2021) of the quantile connectedness approach and the cross-quantilogram model of Han, Linton, Oka and Whang (2016), we determine that positive DeFi and Crypto spillovers exceeded negative NFT spillovers. This paper concludes that both NFTs and DeFi assets show significant potential in terms of portfolio diversification since they display low correlation with cryptocurrencies, especially in the case of DeFis thanks to it being disconnected from other assets in the market, based on this year's data. This has significant implications for investors who seek to diversify their portfolios by including cryptocurrency, NFTs and DeFis as assets.

Abstract-Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a transformative force in the digital economy, offering creators a novel and decentralized way to monetize their work. Powered by blockchain technology, NFTs ensure transparency, traceability, and ownership of digital assets—ranging from art and music to virtual real estate. By eliminating the dependency on traditional intermediaries such as galleries and auction houses, NFTs empower artists to connect directly with global audiences through dedicated marketplaces. This project explores the core concepts of NFTs, their evolution, and their underlying architecture, including blockchain, smart contracts, token standards, and NFT marketplaces. The work process involves the detailed study of how NFTs are minted by uploading digital assets onto a blockchain-supported marketplace, registered through smart contracts, and then traded securely between users. The project also outlines key components such as tokenization, metadata storage, and transaction validation through cryptographic proofs. Through a comprehensive timeline, technical breakdown, and real-world use cases, the paper emphasizes the growing significance of NFTs in redefining digital ownership, while also evaluating their future impact on the Indian market and beyond. Keywords – NFT, Token, Blockchain, Market, Asset, Ethereum, Fungible.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have quickly become an important part of the blockchain economy, theoretically representing ownership of a digital asset registered on a public blockchain such as Ethereum. While several applications of this technology exist, the key underlying factor in NFTs’ success is in their potential for investment – buying, selling, and trading the digital assets such as artwork or video game items using cryptocurrency. The rise and mid-2022 crash of NFT and associated crypto markets have shown the volatility of the sector, and questions have been raised around the sustainability, environmental impact, and exploitative practices within this space – and whether there are, in fact, any possible socially responsible use cases for NFTs. This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature surrounding NFTs, primarily through a thorough ethical analysis of the technology and its implementation, deployment, and sustainability. To do this, it uses the Association of Computing Machinery's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct as a framework for analysis and, following this analysis, makes some recommendations for those wishing to investigate and/or implement NFTs in an ethically responsible manner. The key message is that unless there is absolutely no other way to solve a problem other than using NFTs, then they should not be implemented, as there is currently no ethical use case or means of implementation of NFTs.

Purpose Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most promising phenomenon representing ownership of virtual goods or digital assets. This study aims to empirically examine the factors influencing NFT adoption among customers in the “National Capital Region,” India. Design/methodology/approach The researchers collected data for this quantitative study through a “self-administered questionnaire” from 303 NFT customers in India. The research applied “partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)” to investigate and validate the hypotheses. Findings The outcomes exhibited that trust, perceived playfulness and customer innovativeness significantly influence attitude and purchase intention toward NFTs. However, perceived risk insignificantly affects both attitude and purchase intention toward NFTs. Besides, attitude and purchase intention significantly influence actual purchase behavior toward NFTs. Practical implications The finding facilitates stakeholders (such as customers, practitioners and service providers) to advance the academic understanding of NFT services, including refining pricing strategies and customer preferences and aligning marketing approaches with identified trends in the NFT market. This study also sheds light on NFT services that can help attain the “Digital India mission” of the Indian government. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, no prior efforts have been made to formulate a conceptual model to recognize the factors influencing the actual purchase behavior of customers toward NFT services in India. This paper significantly contributes to the existing literature by addressing this research gap, offering valuable insights, broadening the understanding of NFT adoption and providing a strategic framework for future market development.