The Future of NFTs: Beyond Art and Collectibles

The real power of NFTs is their agnosticism and application across a myriad of other different sectors to create new opportunities and efficiencies.

Jul 19 2024 | Article

NFT tokens crypto

#What Is NFT?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been game-changers in the digital world, bringing a whole new way of representing ownership and authenticity over blockchain-based digital assets. Until now, NFTs have truly made big headlines concerning digital art and collectibles and how artists and creators monetize their works. The potential applications of NFTs are far-reaching from the initial use cases mentioned above and hold great promise in disrupting various industries with innovative capabilities.

Imagine owning a piece of digital art that cannot be duplicated or owning a collectible that is verifiably unique. These are common scenarios with NFTs today, most of which are associated with the likes of Beeple, whose recent Christie's sale netted $69 million for "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," showing enormous value and interest in digital collectibles. Yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The real power of NFTs is their agnosticism and application across a myriad of other different sectors to create new opportunities and efficiencies. Other areas where NFTs can revolutionize include gaming, real estate, intellectual property, supply chains, and even healthcare. They enable a new paradigm of ownership and its value transfer, thus further democratizing the digital economy.

If we delve deeper into the near future of NFTs, we would find various rising use cases, each with its own set of benefits and totally changing the systems in place. Understanding these evolving application areas would better explain how NFTs are likely to shape the digital landscape over the years.

#NFTs for Gaming

#In-Game Assets

It redefines in-game ownership: it is a new gaming concept. Usually, traditional games deny the player true ownership of in-game assets and trading outside the game's ecosystem. With NFTs, proper in-game asset ownership and real trade across different platforms, be it buying or selling, are enabled. For instance, characters and land within games such as Axie Infinity and Decentraland offer a good showcasing example for empowering in-game value and associated economic opportunities with NFTs.

Imagine an Axie Infinity player who owns a rare Axie, a digital creature that goes on adventures and battles. If all else fails, this NFT associated with it can be sold or traded across various marketplaces, thereby endowing the player with real monetary value. This is how it will enhance both gaming experiences and create new sources of revenue for players and developers.

#Play-to-Earn Models

Play-to-earn (P2E) models are gaining traction, with NFTs playing a central role. In such a model, players earn rewards in terms of NFTs or cryptocurrencies through participation in the game. This is how their experience becomes far more engaging and financially rewarding. For example, the income-earning opportunities from players—especially those in emerging markets—have made a living wage from playing this game by collecting valuable NFTs and tokens. Now think of a player in the Philippines who was able to sustain his livelihood through this game during a pandemic: Axie Infinity. Making quite an eye-popping earning from playing and trading in-game assets by strategic gameplay, he showed how radically important NFT-fueled P2E models can be.

NFTs are taking gaming experiences from just a simple form of entertainment to full-fledged ecosystems where a player has the ability to create real, economic value. These developments will bring more players and developers into this spaceand further expand on innovation, growth, and adoption within the ecosystem.

The deeper you get into these industries, which the NFTs will transform, the more you will know that NFTs are the gate to entering new potential efficiency possibilities through multiple domains. The future of NFTs is way beyond just digital art and collectibles. It is already reflected across multiple domains such as gaming, real estate, intellectual property, and many others, shining a beacon on new digital ownership and innovation horizons.

#Real Estate and Virtual Land

#Tokenized Real Estate

Real estate, tokenized, is an innovative application of NFTs that allows investors to get into the real estate market. It represents actual, tangible properties through NFTs, allowing investors to buy fractional ownership of a property, hencemaking the investment into real estate more liquid and accessible. Imagine owning a fraction in a New York City luxury apartment without investing your millions or going into convoluted legal procedures.

Some examples are companies like RealT and Harbor, which have piloted the use of blockchain in tokenizing real estate, thus allowing fractional ownership and eased transactions. Democratizing real estate investment will allow individuals to diversify their portfolios with smaller investments in multiple properties.

#Virtual Real Estate

Another promising field for the application of NFTs is virtual real estate. In this sense, Decentraland and The Sandbox are among them—both platforms use the concept of purchasing, selling, and developing virtual land within a virtual world in order to offer commercial and unique experiences; virtual plots are represented as NFTs that secure their uniqueness and ownership.

Take, for example, Decentraland—a fully decentralized shared virtual world in which users may buy land as NFTs and develop it in anything, from art galleries to online shops. Similar to physical property, the value of virtual land can be appreciated based on location, development, and user demand.

Today, virtual land ownership is literally changing the game, but it has also opened many new business models and opportunities within the digital economy. As the level of users who avail themselves of these virtual worlds continues to increase, so will the demand and value of virtual real estate.

#Intellectual Property and Royalties

#Music and Entertainment

NFTs have revolutionized the music and entertainment industry, offering a new path for creators to monetize their art and provide a direct means for connecting with fans. The musicians can drop one-of-a-kind songs, full albums, or any other type of limited content as an NFT. This ensures that they get all the royalties for every sale, without exception. The model empowers the artists with more control over their intellectual property and income streams.

Consider the band Kings of Leon, which just put out an NFT version of its latest album, When You See Yourself with all sorts of bonus goodies like limited edition vinyl and front-row concert seats available to only those fans. That not onlygives them more income potential but also increases the engagement and loyalty levels between artists and their fans.

#Literature and Media

Authors and content creators are also tapping into NFTs as a means to publish and monetize their works. One can put published books, articles, and other media out as an NFT to ensure authenticity and follow through with the trail of ownership. Further on that, smart contracts will be there to pay the creator their due percentage on each resale.

Imagine purchasing a limited edition digital book from your favorite author, complete with exclusive content, and signed digitally as an NFT. Each time the book changes hands, the author would automatically receive their percentage of the sale, providing continuous income.

#Supply Chain and Provenance

#Product Authenticity

The NFTs disrupt supply chain management through a tamper-proof way of verifying product authenticity. For example, manufacturers of luxury goods can tag their goods with an NFT that provides the consumer with details of the item's provenance and assures its originality to combat counterfeit goods. This helps in the fight against counterfeit goods, and it gives consumers assurance of originality. The luxury goods conglomerate LVMH turned to blockchain technology to verify the authenticity of its products. Thanks to an NFT attached to each item, LVMH assures the customer that it is possible to track the product's history—both where and when a product was made, as well as who it was sold to.

#Transparent Supply Chains

These NFTs can transcend the boundary of luxury items and enhance transparency in the case of a number of other supply chains, ranging from foods to pharmaceuticals. It will actually be in a position to give an articulate account of where any given product has been sourced from, how it was processed, and its transportation log by registering every step on the blockchain. For instance, IBM's Food Trust employs blockchain technology to track food movement from farm to plate. NFT incorporation can verify and ensure that details regarding food journey in the system are secure and transparent to the consumer.

#Identity and Credentials

#Digital Identity

NFTs will revolutionize digital identity, pushing the area towards safety and verification. A digital identity can be represented as an NFT to be used in the verification of the person over the internet and reduce chances of identity theft while increasing privacy for the user. In this manner, NFTs can store personal identification, medical records, and educational certificates securely in a tamper-proof manner.

This applies to a scenario where a university issues NFTs in the form of degrees. Such students would then share their credentials, making it convenient for them and for employers, who would easily verify their authenticity on the blockchain. The call for background checks ceases and risks due to fraudulent claims fall drastically.

#Academic and Professional Qualifications

NFTs issue certifications not just for individual identification but also for academic and professional accomplishments. Issuing the NFTs of certificates and licenses from universities, training, and professional institutions means that credentials are easily verifiable, sans the possibility of being faked.

For instance, MIT has taken a step toward issuance of its graduating students digital diplomas through the use of blockchain technology. An employer can thus easily verify such digital diplomas in a bid to make the hiring process easy.

#Community Membership

NFTs are being created for tokenizing as membership tokens in exclusive communities or groups of a social kind. Such membership tokens enable access to special activities, content, and other perks that make the person feel truly a part of that community, truly engaged within it. An individual holding a community membership NFT could take part in special activities and receive unique benefits.

Take something like Bored Ape Yacht Club, for instance, a massively popular NFT community where one buys membership simply by owning a Bored Ape NFT. Members expect exclusive events, limited edition merchandise, and a vibrant community of like-minded people.

Social Tokens are NFTs staking a claim on the future income of creators or their works. This allows fans and supporters to make investments in their beloved creators, benefiting as those creators start to find success. It helps create a symbiotic bond between creators and their communities: financial support and deeper connections.

For instance, an artist or influencer can issue a social token to all their fans who, in return, hold these tokens or use them for exchanges as the creator's career unfolds. This way, the model will allow creators to monetize work and form deeper relationships with those who support them.

#Healthcare and Medical Records

#Personal Health Records

NFTs can revolutionize the management of personal health records as a safe and portable solution. This will allow patients to control their medical data and only share the same with healthcare providers when necessary. These approaches secure data privacy, thereby positively impacting the accuracy and efficiency in medical care.

Take, for example, a scenario in which a patient's complete medical history was stored as NFTs. In this manner, when visiting a new doctor, the patient could give permission for temporary access to their medical past in order to be administered accurate and fresh information. This would be very useful in bettering patient care, reducing admin burden and costs.

#Human studies and data-based

In addition to personal health records, NFTs can be used to tokenize research data about a person's medical details. In other words, secure the sharing of data in a manner that would give complete assurance of participants' privacy. Thiscould further incentivize the sharing of data and collaboration for an acceleration in medical progress.

For instance, this creates the room for a medical research institution to tokenize the datasets so that other researchers can access data in a controlled and transparent way. It promotes collaboration and ensures important data is used well to result in scientific progress.

#Conservation Efforts

It also finds application in conservation efforts. NFTs are created that represent virtual trees, land, or other environmental assets to raise resources for such conservation projects. These NFTs can be traded and sold, with the proceeds going for the protection and sustainability of the environment.

One NFT project is called NFTrees, where every single one of the NFTs directly correlates to a physically planted tree within a conservation area. The buyer supports the reforestation initiative and can track how their tree grows over time and what kind of impact it creates.

#Charity and Fundraising

It is now philanthropy's turn to attract NFTs for the collection of funds, either for operational use or as an investment for subsequent deployment. Both charities and nonprofits can mint NFTs in donation amounts, then conduct an auction to transparently raise funds from donors while making the process more engaging.

For example, a charity could have a limited-edition NFT specifically to raise funds. In this way, by receiving donors for these tokens, the contribution is made in parallel to holding a peculiar digital good, adding an extra layer of transparency through this model.

#Conclusion

Beyond digital art and collectibles, NFTs may have very far-reaching impacts on the entire sphere of business and industry. Therein lie innovative applications for not only gaming but also in the fields of real estate, healthcare, and environmental conservation—where ownership and engagement shall be put into their best-appreciated positions. Most excitingly, more disruptive use cases will continue developing for the NFT space in a future where technology is ever-shaping the digital economy.