Paris, France: Glistening, shimmering, and pulsating above the city of love, it’s as if the Eiffel Tower, a beacon of twinkling light at night, beckoned the global audience of over 18,000 people dedicated to art, community, and innovation to NFT.Paris, a conference focused on the emerging technology. Ask most normies, and they will likely still scoff at the viability of NFTs. Not this group. The enthusiasm never waned for the visionaries, during the darkest days of the bear market, they were building. Producing new protocols, testing new blockchains, assembling new businesses, networking across continents, bolstering communities, and ever offering to help those less familiar with the potential of NFTs, these stewards remained beyond the initial hype cycle and use cases of 2021.
NFTs Clear Winner:
One of the shining example of the success of this derivative blockchain technology is its community. Whether you’re aware or not, organizations like CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and dozens of others foster genuine connectiveness for people. Initially virtual, the IRL events manifest love, especially this year in Paris.
CryptoPunk 7129 - "A Hoodie"
I had the good fortune to attend the Punks Brunch, a “tokengated” event (e.g. TokenProof), utilizing provable assets in digital wallets, soon to be nearly universal for concerts and sporting venues, to grant access. The technical acumen, depth of passion, openness, creativity, of these pixelated PFP (profile picture) owners and their friends at the event was palpable. The diversity of thoughts, borderless kinship, and drive to create abounded at the CryptoPunk Brunch. It alone is a testament to the first use case of NFTs which remains viable.
What’s Next:
So, what is the state of NFTs in 2024? For the true believers we’re already here. Artists were the early adopters. They have found their future, and it looks bright. In this next cycle, gaming ($300B) will likely be the winner of the pending bull market. Soon, with the adoption of spatial computing (VR/AR), NFTs will dominate as digital asset ownership proliferates. If you haven’t used the Apple Vision Pro, Oculus Quest, or other face mounted computer, it’s perfectly positioned to consume provable ownership of digital assets. It is simply a matter of time, two or three years at most.
CryptoPunks - Yuga Labs Event - Leaders, Natalie Stone & Sean Bonner at NFT.Paris
Honorable Mentions:
- Music and Entertainment: NFTs provide musicians and entertainers a novel way to monetize their creations and engage with fans. By tokenizing music, albums, or experiences, artists can offer exclusive content, limited editions, and rights to their fans. Kings of Leon, for example, released an album as an NFT, paving the way for new forms of musical releases.
- Identity and Ownership Verification: Beyond art and entertainment, NFTs have the potential to revolutionize identity verification and ownership of physical assets. By tokenizing real-world assets like real estate or luxury goods, NFTs could provide immutable proof of ownership and streamline transactions. Concepts like using NFTs for digital identities or certificates could impact a vast number of people by simplifying and securing online interactions.
- Educational Content and Credentials: NFTs can be used to tokenize educational materials or credentials, allowing for the secure and verifiable issuance of certificates, diplomas, and other educational achievements. This can revolutionize the education sector by enabling seamless verification of qualifications and facilitating a global marketplace for educational content.
- Healthcare and Medical Records: NFTs offer a novel approach to managing and securing personal medical records. By tokenizing patient data, individuals could have more control over their medical information, ensuring privacy and enabling secure sharing with healthcare providers. This concept could vastly improve the efficiency and security of healthcare systems worldwide.
- Sustainability and Environmental Initiatives: NFTs are being used to promote sustainability through carbon credit trading and funding environmental projects. Projects like Aerial use NFTs to represent carbon offsets, allowing individuals and companies to buy, sell, or retire carbon credits as NFTs. This innovative use of NFTs can have a global impact by facilitating more transparent and accessible carbon offset markets.
- Supply Chain and Authenticity Verification: NFTs can provide a transparent and immutable record of the supply chain journey of products, from production to delivery. This has significant implications for combating counterfeiting and ensuring the authenticity of goods, especially in the luxury and high-value goods market. Multiple projects on the Ethereum blockchain are aiming to improve supply chain management and could potentially integrate NFTs for even greater transparency and security.
Believe it or not, NFTs are here to stay. The harder question, will they be called NFTs in the coming years? Alas, the underlining tech will become universal with the tokenization of all physical and digital assets. The experience at NFT.Paris confirmed it was actually NFTs, not the Eiffel Tower, which was the beacon of light that drew people in, and with which all will be enlightened soon.