Proof-of-truth: Countering AI overreach through Cointelegraph’s Historical NFTs

In the rapidly evolving world of blockchain technology, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as an asset class offering a unique opportunity to own many kinds of digital items — both rare and valuable. Since the initial boom of NFTs manifested through the world of collectible digital art (such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks), the past year has seen digital collectibles utilized in various other interesting real-world use cases. Cointelegraph’s Historical Collection is a prime example of this.

The Historical Collection is an initiative that allows individuals to own a piece of history by minting any article published on Cointelegraph as a digital collectible. It offers an opportunity to search for iconic art and headlines or hunt for hot, breaking news early to mint on the Polygon blockchain.

CHECK OUT THE COINTELEGRAPH HISTORICAL COLLECTION

Since its debut, the collection has seen nearly 1,100 minted versions of numerous Cointelegraph articles being resold as collectibles, making their availability scarce, as each article can be minted only a certain number of times. Interestingly, only 3% of these articles are listed for secondary sale, indicating that many people are buying them as long-term or sentimental investments.

Becoming part of history

While celebrating the success of innovative projects, it’s crucial to address the looming specter of artificial intelligence (AI) in the digital content landscape. AI’s capacity to generate vast amounts of content could potentially disrupt the ways people consume and monetize free content.

Ivan Sokolov, co-founder of Mintmade — a platform designed for creating digital collectibles natively integrated into news media outlets — told Cointelegraph that moving forward, owning such pieces of content in today’s digital age will be highly significant, explaining:

“By owning articles, people are showing that they care about the internet we know: free, accessible and trustworthy. If AI continues to disrupt the ways we monetize free content, we could face paywalls in every media outlet that provides access to free and professional coverage of important news.”

Sokolov’s concerns are not unfounded. There is a lot of data suggesting the rapidly expanding AI ecosystem is overwhelming the internet’s capacity for scale. AI systems — particularly generative models — are capable of producing an enormous amount of text and images in an extremely short period, leading to potential degradation of the quality of the information available online.

AI-generated information models can quite often be misinformed, biased or entirely false, and thus erroneous data produced by them can be extremely challenging to spot. This can lead to the spread of misinformation, a significant concern in today’s digital age. Furthermore, AI models can also scrape data from the web without regard for copyright or privacy, leading to potential legal and ethical issues.

In this context, initiatives like the Historical Collection by Cointelegraph allow readers to own pieces of quality, verified content in the form of NFTs. The Historical Collection seeks to offer an alternative path to how independent, unbiased news can still be pursued and promoted in this increasingly decentralized world. “By investing in these NFTs, individuals are not only investing in future profits but also in the future of information. Investors are supporting media they trust and topics they find interesting. This is more important than ever,” Sokolov said in closing.

Thus, as readers ponder the kind of content they’ll be consuming in a year, and who will be writing it, it’s clear that the Historical Collection by Cointelegraph offers a unique opportunity to invest in the future of information. So, why not start by minting this very article into an NFT and becoming a part of history?

Collect this article as an NFT to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.