In contrast to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), we have created Totally Fungible Tokens (TFTs)—physical tokens for the physical world.
About the Project
In spring of 2021, Amir called David to ask what he knew about blockchain 
. David admitted that he didn’t know much beyond the broad outlines (“Let me Google that…”). In general, he thought of it as a heavyweight solution for a problem that could be solved in other, more suitable ways. The conversation turned to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which use blockchain technology and, at the time, were taking the art world by storm.
The purpose of an NFT is to authenticate that a digital artwork is unique. The good news is that these digital signatures are secure and verifiable.
The bad news is:
- The link to the actual artwork can go away, and you are left with a unique, authentic link to…nothing.
- The computation involved in creating an NFT is highly energy-intensive. In April 2021, the average energy required per Bitcoin transaction was over 900 kilowatt-hours.
Both Amir and David agreed that NFTs seem to be a sketchy business at best and a total scam at worst. “Well,” said David, “what we really need is a totally fungible token. It should be physical, like a wooden nickel.”
Amir, however, had recently acquired a kiln and wanted to fire it up1 for use with a project, and suggested using ceramic instead. Since Amir is an artist, he did the graphic design and the three-d printing of the stamp for the tokens. The rest, as they say, is what you are reading here.
Frequently Asked Questions
- You call this art?
- Yes. David says that art is anything that makes you look at the same old thing in a new way.2
- Can I use Totally Fungible Tokens as currency?
- No! You don’t want to attract the attention of federal regulatory agencies, who frown upon that sort of thing . The law we link to mentions metal, and these tokens are ceramic, but how dangerously do you want to live?3
- So, how valuable are TFTs, really?
- We, of course, think they have immense value as a pure artistic statement. We could give you some specious rhetoric about the “invisible hand of the free market,” but honestly? Outside of cost of materials and our time, they’re worth next to nothing.
- How did you make the tokens?
- See the process.
- How much energy is used to make each TFT?
- The kiln draws 240 volts at 20 amperes for 12 hours to to make a batch of 1000 tokens4, so that’s a total of 57.6 kw-hours, which works out to 0.06 kw-hour per token. That’s less than the amount of energy needed to bake one pizza.5
- Can I make my own TFTs?
- Yes; we are making these files available as open source under a Creative Commons License .
- Can I sell NFTs for the source files?
- Yes, if you:
- have missed the point of this project entirely
- want to be an eco-villain and a terrible human being
- Are there digital TFTs?
- Yes.
External link icon by Astonish from the Noun Project
1 Yes, that was intentional: “Stop it! You’re kiln me!”
2 This is why David should not give up his day job teaching Computer Science.
3 Neither of us is a lawyer.
4 Yes, that is one big-*ss kiln.
5 An electric pizza oven that can bake a pizza in 15 minutes at 400°C / 752°F draws 400V at 5 amps, which works out to 0.5 kilowatt-hours. By comparison, the average Bitcoin transaction takes 1800 pizzas worth of energy. This should give you pause to think.
Totally Fungible Tokens by Amir Esfahani and J. D. Eisenberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.