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Gaming collectibles have sold for millions in the past. But they do not come close to some blue-chip NFTs. Some CryptoPunk NFTs sold for over $20 million, while NFT artwork like Beeple’s sold for a breathtaking $69 million in 2021. Gamers who hold collectibles have, however, rarely bothered with NFTs so far. That may be changing.
According to reports, the animal racing game Petarush allows NFT owners to use their NFTs as characters on its platform. The game allows NFTs to enter the gaming world on a blockchain. That is two different Web 3.0 applications finally coming together.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) make digital creations unique. But what are NFTs? Are NFTs a buy now?
Making digital copies is easy. Whether on a computer or on a mobile device, users can copy and paste, creating replicas with just a click of the mouse. These copies are also cheaper: When broken down, it is just simple classical economics where supply and demand determine the price. The more copies we make, the lower the price of each copy. The law applies as much to the real world as to the virtual world.
On the other hand, an original Renoir painting or a unique opera performance do not have copies and command a high price because they cannot be imitated. They are non-fungible.
So what happens when we want to make a digital object — digital art, digital awards, digital certificates — unique?
Non-fungible tokens are digital inventions that make digital creations unique. NFTs are digital certificates of authenticity. Due to the blockchain technology that underpins the digital assets, ownership rights are tamper-resistant and immutably recorded on a block.
NFTs can be traded on exchanges. Trading volume and total sales for the tokens, however, have plunged along with the crypto market.
Most NFTs today run on the Ethereum blockchain and have the programmable features of smart contracts. Since they are tokens generated digitally, they can be used to secure ownership of both tangible and intangible items. Besides artwork, collectibles and real estate, NFTs can also be generated for tweets and several other kinds of internet content.
NFTs are already a new venture for top streaming content players Walt Disney (DIS) and Netflix (NFLX). These leaders know that their premium content alone is not enough. They have had to reinvent themselves time and again to lure viewers and keep the lead.
On Netflix or Disney, NFTs would allow content creators to continue to own digital rights to the content being streamed. This could lead to authors offering their content independently without a curating intermediary. Viewers may also be able to sell their opinion of a program in a tweet and make it an NFT as well.
But equally important, NFTs may be a new way of getting viewers by letting them say how much they liked a show. For the third season of “Love, Death and Robots,” Netflix launched an NFT scavenger hunt on OpenSea, an NFT marketplace. The NFTs sell for a fraction of one ETH so are not pricey.
But the relative price of each NFT sale will show how much viewers liked it compared with other Netflix shows. That kind of data can help the streaming giant gauge viewers’ likes and dislikes and curate their content more effectively.
Disney has also partnered with VeVe Digital Collectibles. But it has also chosen crypto firm Polygon to explore a theme-park metaverse for “next-generation storytelling.”
It has other plans, including partnering with Lockerverse for telling stories through augmented reality with unique NFTs and Flickplay, which discovers the tokens connected to real locations that users can experience and share through augmented reality.
NFT adoption will likely grow, though right now sales volume is low. Top NFTs such as CryptoPunks and Xmon may still command a huge price. But NFTs as a whole are yet to regain the momentum they had in 2021. However, as companies see new ways of using NFTs, the interest will likely go up, making them good buys.
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