Have you thought about what presents will be in trend in 2022? This article might have an answer 😉
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a new trend for this year. These digital tokens are linked to digital assets, such as video highlights, memes, or even tweets, and have the real potential of making someone rich. In simple terms, NFTs provide a digital asset or work of art with a blockchain-created certificate of authenticity. They’re all over the place, from the NFL to Twitter to digital copies of Louvre Museum art.
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a new way to digitally acquire and trade art and other assets. These crypto-assets represent the most recent blockchain-based boom: The whole market for NFTs was about $42 million three years ago. By the end of 2021, the marketplace for non-fungible tokens, which are digital pieces of art tied to blockchain technology, reached a $41 billion value, according to blockchain data company Chainalysis, which updated a previous report.
The convergence of the digital and physical worlds is taking shape, with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) allowing brands to expand their reach into “digitally-enabled experiential tie-ins,” investment bank Jefferies said in an analyst note. Hence according to Jefferies Analysts led by Stephanie Wissink, the bank raised its NFT market-cap forecast to more than $35 billion for 2022 and over $80 billion for 2025.
An NFT is a one-of-a-kind digital token that uses the Ethereum blockchain to record transactions digitally. It’s not a fungible cryptocurrency like bitcoin or ether, which can be exchanged for another bitcoin or cash. NFTs, like bitcoin, are kept in a digital ledger, and each one has a list of who owns it. The digital asset linked to the token is what distinguishes an NFT. This might be an image, video, tweet, or piece of music that is published to a marketplace and then sold as an NFT.
They give secure ownership right over a digital asset to a buyer, preserving the item’s value. However, the internet makes it simple to copy and fabricate anything, and without an entire ownership record like an NFT, the product is virtually worthless.
NFTs allow a seller not only to sell something today but also to continue earning tomorrow. Artists, in particular, have historically struggled to profit from the increasing value of their work. NFTs can be created to let the token’s author receive money every time it loses value, generally between 2.5 percent and 10% of the selling price. Any renowned person trying to increase their earnings potential would appreciate the option to set up a regular cash stream. Last weekend, YouTube personality Logan Paul, dressed as a Pokémon trainer in a cartoon picture, sold $5 million worth of his own NFT.
NFTs have an almost endless range of uses. Some predict that in 10 years, all purchases will include NFTs. Others believe that smart contracts will eventually replace relevant formalities like paperwork. While many people believe that NFTs are hype or too obscure to become widely usable, major companies such as Meta (previously Facebook), Twitter, Reddit, and Visa are paying attention and striving to ensure that they don’t lose out on the NFT growth.
Some of the exciting NFT upcoming trends are:
A new electronic game that allows players to purchase, breed, and trade NFT kittens surged in popularity in 2017. The demand for CryptoKitties was such that transaction volume surpassed the Ethereum network’s limitations, halting cryptocurrency transactions. In 2021, hundreds of games based exclusively on NFTs were available. In addition, existing games are being updated to include NFTs. NFTs may even have the ability to change the way in-game marketplaces work.
The gaming sector has a lot of potential with blockchain technology and NFTs. Axie Infinity and Blankos Block Party, for example, are making headlines with their play-to-earn (P2E) models, which pay gamers actual money. They’ve gained tremendous popularity in the last year, especially in developing countries.
The metaverse is being anticipated as the future of online interactions and the next stage of the internet by many. For example, Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the rebranding of Facebook as Meta, as well as the firm’s ambition to become a “metaverse firm.” Meta aspires to create a virtual world that combines business, pleasure, and social interaction.
What does this mean in terms of NFTs?
In Zuckerberg’s announcement, he stressed that the metaverse should have privacy, security, and interoperability. As our lives become increasingly advanced, we’ll want more secure methods of proving ownership of our identities and digital assets.
Thus, this is where NFT plays an important role. Consider the metaverse to be a digital version of the actual world. You can talk to other people, explore, shop, and accomplish tasks. NFTs enable the same non-fungibility of assets that we experience in the real world in this domain.
Some NFTs are extremely expensive, as we all know. For example, as of this writing, the lowest Crypto Punk for sale costs about $400,000. However, fragmentation is a new trend that makes high-value NFTs more accessible to buyers.
Fragmentation is the process of breaking down a non-fungible token (NFT) into smaller pieces (ERC-20 tokens) so that individuals may buy small fragments of a much more expensive NFT. It’s easier to conceive about NFT fragmentation in terms of corporate shares. When you purchase a share, you are purchasing a small part of the company. Similarly, an NFT may be fragmented into millions of tiny pieces or shards, and users can buy their portion of the NFT at a lesser price by fragmenting it. NFT pieces, on the other hand, are fungible, meaning they may be exchanged or swapped for an identical item.
The creation of NFTs by AI is the first major trend today. This isn’t a recent phenomenon. At Christie’s in 2018, Obvious Art sold an artwork made by an AI dubbed GAN for more than $400,000. However, since the introduction of NFTs, the worth of digital assets has become widely acknowledged, and new AI initiatives are churning out new artworks and minting them as NFTs on a daily basis.
Arlequn, the artwork below, was made by an AI named Alicia.
Alicia evaluated approximately 9,100 paintings by well-known artists and ran 300,000 rounds of complicated programming to identify the artists’ patterns and strategies. As a result, Arlequin was born, one of Alicia’s numerous one-of-a-kind paintings.
On AI Made Art, it was purchased as an NFT for slightly over $400 (0.1 ETH). The artwork was developed by artificial intelligence and is not simply digitally saved on the blockchain.
The NFT space is constantly evolving. New NFT initiatives are being built and created every day, such as NFT streaming, NFT medical and financial services, NFT Ticketing, Avatars & PFP NFTs, Digital twin NFTs and Scaling blockchains and websites. However, the continuous rise of NFTs increased interest in technology, and the industry’s ever-expanding applications have been the few consistent NFT trends during the last year.
The future depicted by these NFT trends is intriguing. While many people are concerned about the metaverse’s consequences and the emergence of AI, it’s an exciting future ahead. It’s a future that will, for better or worse, bridge the gap between consumers and creators, provide value and security to digital assets, and radically change the world.
