Like a physical collectible, it is a keepsake, or an item of significance relevant to a person or entity of interest. With physical collectibles, often the transfer of the object itself, sometimes with certificates of authenticity are an exchange of value. With digital collectibles, we use other technologies to prove authenticity and ownership to make them transferrable between fans.
We use blockchain technology to record ownership of these Collectibles, and in "blockchain speak" these are knows as NFT's. This stands for “non-fungible token”. It is really simple, just imagine there is a public database that anyone can look at to see that "you" or more specifically "your wallet" owns this particular collectible. That record has a one of a kind digital signature which ensures your Collectible is unique, a one-of-a-kind digital asset. The Collectibles may share similarities and traits, but each is different. Note that sometimes COllectibles are created as a "Series", meaning that the Collectible is one of a series of the same item, like (1 of 500), but the Collectible you hold in your wallet represents one of those series individually. On VRYNT, a collection may. be made of 5000 Collectibles, but you build yours which make it very unique and personal.
Specifically, the word "non-fungible" means it unique and cannot be equally replaced. It is not like money which has a know "fungible" value, like a U.S. dollar can be equally traded with another U.S. dollar as an example.
An image of some art is a "property" of the digital collectible. The public record of ownership, the record on the Blockchain, is the actual asset. Think of it like a car really isn't worth anything without the title of ownership. A digital Collectible may actually have multiple images associated with the Collectible. As an example, a celebrity may add a digital signature to the Collectible at a later time, so now there is an original image, and an evolved image associated with the Collectible.
This is really the key point is why Digital Collectibles are sought after and have many applications beyond just the image associated with it. Anyone can screenshot an image of a Collectible, but only the holder of the Collectible can stake claim to it and prove that they own it through the power of digital ownership. This is really important for claiming benefits of Collectible Ownership. That benefit may be a discount on merchandise, a meet and greet, or priority access to an event.
This is only scratching the surface for the endless use cases for Digital Collectibles.
