Beyond the buzz around NFTs… what sectors will be impacted?
The NFTs (Non Fongible Token) have been making the buzz for a few months now. But what is an NFT and what does it mean for the video game, art, fashion or music industry?
A non-fungible token is not interchangeable, it is a cryptographic token whose rarity and ownership can be checked and which concerns a digital asset. This digital asset can be a video, a GIF, an image, a piece of music, a video game element and more generally any digital asset.
The art market has been one of the most impacted since the beginning of the year with auctions of digital works at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. A record sale made the headlines in March with a work by artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, sold for over $69 million. This puts this artist in the top 3 most popular living artists. This work is a montage of his 5000 creations in the format of a jpeg collage. At the same time Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, had sold his first tweet in NFT format for $2.9 million. It is a real frenzy that has taken over the blockchain world with these record sales.
What are the fields of application of NFTs?
NTFs make it very easy to monetize digital works by artists who can «minter» them (creation of NFT) in one or more copies on dedicated markets, such as Opensea.io.
The video game world is also taking hold of the NFT trend. Games like F1 Delta Time, Axie Infinity or Blockchain Heroes are the figureheads. On F1 Delta Time, you can upgrade your racing car by purchasing accessories in NFT format. The better your car will perform, the more chances you will have to win races and thus win accessories that you can use for your vehicle, or to resell to other players. With NFTs, there are new monetization opportunities for the video game industry.
Source : F1 Delta Time
The American sport jumps with both feet in the world of NFTs. The aim is to create a new type of experience for private fans of stadiums and gyms, while deploying an offer for collectors of sporting goods. The best example is the NBA with NBA Top Shot. NBA Top Shot, which was created with the support of Dapperlabs, allows fans to buy digital packs containing between 3 and 5 videos of the best actions of basketball players in this league. Fans can keep these videos or decide to sell them, depending on their rarity, in the associated marketplace. Some of these videos can be exchanged for thousands of dollars. This was the case for a stock of Lebron James, star of the Los Angeles Lakers, sold recently for 387,000 dollars. With the NFTs, the American Basketball League offered itself new sources of revenue while its venues could not receive any spectators. More than $230 million was spent on NBA Top Shots at the end of February 2021.
Source : NBA Top Shot
In the field of football, the digital card game to collect Sorare allows to create its virtual football team. For example, a Cristiano Ronaldo card was sold for $290,000 in March 2021. With their team, collectors can win virtual championships. The points awarded to each team are based on the performance of its players during their matches in the real world. With a growing market, most European leagues have partnered with Sorare to also collect additional revenues.
In the continuity of the sport, all collectors will be impacted by NFTs. On Veve you can buy for example virtual figurines of Batman or Marty McFly. The world of pop culture is turning to NFTs and necessarily a link can be quickly made with the virtual world Oasis of the film Ready Player One. Today, you can even buy virtual worlds on Decentraland.
The music world is also taking over NFTs. Today, through several dedicated market places you can buy creations of singers or musicians. For example, DJ 3LAU sold $11.7 million of his creations to his fans. And if NFTs became a way for artists to free themselves from production houses…
Fashion is very interested in the NFTs world. Luxury brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton have launched their NFTs. NFTs associated with real products to ensure authenticity. Nike on its side has also filed a patent to associate NFTs and pair of sneakers collection. Thus when selling a basketball sought by collectors, the associated NFT will prove that you are the owner. This token will then be passed on to the buyer.
A fashion brand like Carlings has even created virtual clothing to dress up our avatars or future digital doubles.
Source : Hyperbeast
All this is in line with what is being done in the world of video games such as Fortnite. In this game, players can buy skins to dress their character.
And tomorrow? Why not «minte» our personal data and sell them to the highest bidder on marketplaces. Let’s say our medical records could be turned into NFT. This NFT could be auctioned off to obtain the best medical coverage. It could be the same for the purchase of a property with your financial profile that has been «minted» in NFT.
NFTs may seem superfluous, or simply buzz, but they could also pave the way for an unprecedented form of monetization of personal data.
