An NFT ("Non-fungible token") can be any asset in digital format including, but not limited to pictures, photos, animated GIFs, songs, movies, e-books, or a digital document associated with a particular digital or physical asset (e.g. license, user manual, terms of use, personal note, etc.). Anyone can mint an NFT and sell it on digital markets (such as NFT marketplaces), at any price and in any currency. It is believed that the greatest value of an NFT lies in its authenticity, irreplaceability, traceability and uniqueness. Although each author's work is authentic in its own way, the fact is that most of such assets are publicly available in formats, sizes, or resolutions different from the original and above all, of questionable quality. All this causes damage to an author's work in regard to its value and spoils the image of non-fungibility.

An NFT can refer to a digital box of curios (e.g. an unpublished series of photographs, premium pieces of music, etc.), but not necessarily. There certainly must be proof of the authenticity and inalterability of an NFT. It is commonly said that an NFT represents data stored on a blockchain, which is a decentralized database that is publicly shared and synchronized amongst nodes of a computer network and operates without the need for central authority. A blockchain ensures that the data stored within is virtually immutable and properly verified. In this context, minting an NFT also defines how one's work becomes part of a blockchain. In fact, it would be best to embed all the necessary verification information, including the material used to promote an NFT, directly into the file and distribute it along with the digital medium that represents the NFT. We believe that authentication should be performed independently of external sources and therefore all data must be contained and available at all times within the NFT itself. No matter how secure it is, a blockchain is an externally controlled network and is not controlled by the original owner of an NFT. In the event of any problem with the blockchain, the integrity of the NFT would be irreparably compromised, which we must not allow to happen.

It is possible to trace an NFT from creator to customer by validating the transaction on a blockchain, or by directly extracting information embedded into the NFT itself. It should be noted that ownership of an NFT does not substantially confer copyright or intellectual property rights on the digital asset that the NFT is claimed to represent. The appropriate license to use, copy, distribute or display items being sold or traded must therefore be associated with each NFT entering the market. When it comes to creating/minting an NFT, it is required that the final product be identical to the author's work as it came out of the workshop, with the addition of embedded information necessary for its veridical identification. A non-fungible token is not just a virtual certificate of ownership of a digital object, but a true digital art and an expression of the will and intention of creative artists, who invest their knowledge, talent and money, to finally have their works valued accordingly.

Here are some of the most prominent obstacles that need to be overcome in order to mint real, unique and self-verifying non-fungible tokens. We will analyze the costs of creating and minting an NFT and explain what an NFT has to do with blockchain technology.

Most NFT marketplaces will require you to first purchase a particular cryptocurrency before obtaining permission to sell your NTF, including, but not limited to, prepaying blockchain verification costs to offset the computing energy required to process and validate transactions. All things considered, the initial investment can reach several thousand dollars, which is a large sum of money for most people. It is not uncommon for the cost to outweigh the profits, which discourages many talented artists from even thinking about starting a business with NFTs.

If we don't dig too deep, the process of minting an NFT may not seem so complicated at first glance. However, if we scratch the surface, we realize that this whole workflow, from creating an NFT and ensuring its authenticity, through calculating total costs and dealing with variable and uncertain cryptocurrencies, to the rather vague process of validating blockchain transactions, can hardly contribute to the popularity of doing business with NFTs. Instead of being closed within a single database, as is the case with centralized systems, files and information are diversified throughout the blockchain and made available to as many computers connected to a common peer-to-peer network as needed. The network must be open, accessible to multiple people and transparent, and its content must be at hand for validation at all times with the help of reliable mathematical calculations.

Due to the lack of an appropriate software solution, the path of least resistance is chosen and the use of inadequate replacements is insisted on. As a result, the efficiency of the blockchain technology algorithms used has been drastically reduced due to the fact that they are unnecessarily burdened with numerous, still unsolved issues. The digital and physical worlds must complement each other, not oppose each other, so the solutions offered must be in line with this principle.

An author who has written a book, recorded a song or painted a picture and who wants to present his work in some way, is advised to make a short promo video in which he would address the audience directly. This video could be accompanied by a series of photos, digitized newspaper clippings, animations, text messages and the like. The accompanying material (promo video + other files) should be incorporated into the digital product in such a way that it does not compromise the integrity of the file and the original structure. Just as well, we should be able to easily extract and use it independently of the file itself. Technically, this is difficult to do, but not impossible. For example, it is common practice to record textual data within a blockchain, which includes external references and a link to the corresponding website. Over time, the link may become "broken" as the resource moves to a new address or becomes permanently unavailable, meaning that the website is no longer available. If this were to happen, the information stored in the blockchain would lose its relevance, while the blockchain would jeopardize its own credibility. On the other hand, the "invisible watermark" embedded in the NFT remains permanently available to those who purchased the NFT and lasts as long as the NFT itself exists, regardless of external changes that may occur in the meantime. That is why this is exactly the solution we'll be striving for.

Algorithms designed to verify NFTs cause enormous energy consumption. It is not the fault of the computers on the network that perform the verification, nor it's the fault of the NFTs that require authentication. The "culprit" lies in the way the algorithms work. Typically, we need to compute/validate a hash value that starts with leading zeros (this refers to a cryptographic hash representing an encrypted fixed-length value that identifies a given amount of data). The computing program is running inside a loop, which executes a block of statements repeatedly until the specified goal is achieved. This process can take a long time to complete (and take up a lot of computing resources) and is responsible for downtime, bugs, "program-not-responding" errors, which lead to computer overheating and, consequently, to increased power consumption. The solution is to execute the command block inside and break the loop as quickly as possible. This means refraining from performing tasks that we know in advance are too complex. Supposedly, to increase the security of the blockchain, as it is usually interpreted. It is incomprehensible that engineers persistently try to force a solution within one and the same working environment, although it is crystal clear that this concept must be changed.

The reason for this problem lies in the fact that all attention is focused on building blocks in chains, and not on how NFTs are created or minted themselves. If it were not so, NFTs would not be made in the way that most services do today. The production technology seems to be based on the collection of components from totally different, unrelated sources, which, gathered in one place, appear as if they were made with scissors and duct tape. The conceptual solution is simple. A multi-purpose invisible digital watermark will be built into the NFT. It will serve as a repository for the creator's promo material (audio, video, images, texts, etc.), as well as its global unique identifier and copyright protection tool. It will also serve as proof of the authenticity of the work and the integrity of the content which it consists of. For example, we have a series of photographs that the artist wants to pack and sell as an NFT. We can do the following. We will first insert a watermark into each photo individually, zip the watermarked files and embed a new watermark in that zip file too. We will define the way of selling the NFT and the format which it will be sold in:

• There is an official NFT store, or the sale will be made through an official channel established by the author of the NFT himself;
• The NFT will be sold exclusively in ZIP format and in no other way; we can change the .zip extension to, say, a .nft extension for marketing purposes, but basically, it remains a .zip file.

When someone buys an NFT, after unpacking the zip file with the watermark, its contents (photos, in this case) will regularly become available to the customer. What follows is the essence of the way in which digital watermarks affect the protection of the authenticity and integrity of NFTs:

• If someone tries to resell an NFT (in the original format, without unpacking), it is easy to confirm that the sale is illegal, because it does not take place through the official NFT store, or through the official channel provided by the creator of the NFT;
• If someone unpacks the original (watermarked) zip file and sells the individual files contained in it, the sale will be considered illegal - an NFT cannot be sold in pieces, but only as a whole;
• If someone unpacks the original (watermarked) zip file and reassembles the files into a new zip file, the sale will undoubtedly be considered illegal, because the new zip file will not have a valid digital watermark.

Any attempt to falsify an NFT will be rooted out. All it takes is a click of a button to determine if the digital object is a genuine and authentic work - or a forgery.