NFTs, what is happening and what is expected

In 2021 we were able to witness unimaginable prices in the NFT market. Drawings of monkeys, digital lands for sale and even “wearables” to equip in virtual worlds are some of the many NFT assets that emerged to invest or waste money.

However, this isn’t the most significant side of NFTs; the most relevant is that before its existence, there was no way to represent the tradable and interoperable digital asset “Ownership” without relying on a third party.

With this in mind, we are capable of understanding where we are standing and how the NFT market could change in the future, bringing us better investment ideas as well as setting our north to build better products.

The current situation is analogous to what happened with the “DEFI”(decentralized finances) some time ago. Before the daily use of Lending, Farming, AMMs and Flash Loans platforms, there was a chaotic moment that brought creation.

Endless ERC-20, algorithmic stablecoins and governance tokens were needed, so that the ecosystem could nourish and evolve over time.

From the very first NFT hype at the end of 2017 with CryptoKitties, until now, the foundations have been set but neither great games nor the most relevant artist or the latest tech improvements, compares to what could be achieved in the future.

With a well-established groundwork, ideas come up, and devs are ready to start the game. By proving ownership of digital assets through quality software and hardware, we will be able to implement NFTs in the near future easily.

What can be built on NFTs?

Let’s imagine an NFT key for your front door, it may not be worthy…

Regardless of this, we can anticipate that in the future, this kind of NFT may have an advanced code (or perhaps better interconnectivity with other platforms), making the owner the only one capable of seeing the exact location of the door that can be opened with the key. The lock will not have space for a non-digital key, it will be triggered by a pop-up in your cell phone that will ensure the ownership of the NFT connected to it.

Here’s a demo:

How many times have you been locked out of your home? How many other times did you wait for someone to give you a key to unlock a rented place while on vacation? This is not a minor application.

Checking the ownership of digital assets along with real-world implementations is going to be a daily matter: football clubs’ memberships, plane tickets, or concert passes will soon be exchangeable and digital.

Unlike previous scenarios where NFTs are there for particular situations, when we build on NFTs, we are developing new products taking advantage of existing ones. Building in crypto is like playing with LEGOs; we keep adding bricks on top of existing structures.

There are already valuable NFTs out there, although their use cases are limited. For instance, it was not until early 2022 that Twitter allowed ownership of NTFs to be verified and let users use them as profile pictures. Prior to that, ownership of the famous PFPs didn’t seem to serve much more than to show off.

Nowadays, there are many protocols and projects building on NFTs.
Let’s take a look at some of them:

OpenSea
This is the NFT marketplace with the highest transaction volume in the world, and they have created a nice user-friendly interface, APIs and has strong supporting information. It seems to achieve a good adoption combo in terms of audience.

Worldwide Webb:
A browser game where NFTs work as add-ons for our characters in-game. The game has the idea of constant interoperability and can be found when in the same Worldwide Webb metaverse, Aavegotchi, Cryptopunk and, BAYC interact.

SudoSwap:
It is a project where we can safely exchange NFTs without even knowing the counterparty.
It’s an exchange, not a sale; hence this allows another type of trading, a true p2p trading of NFTs.

The main point of building on NFTs is to provide better ways to use and understand this technology that’s here to stay. This is why building the right infrastructure is essential to support the growth of the NFT ecosystem.

Pretty soon, lending & renting NFTs, non-transferable identity documents (such as “SoulBound”) and even compatibility with gaming consoles (wallets integrated with PlayStation or Nintendo) will be a reality.

It is time for us to get the ball rolling on this transformation and stop being seen as simple .jpgs speculators.

The goal is to be seen as BUILDERS with a purpose through art, gaming and top-level products.