We’re in a serious crypto winter, and the price of NFTs are sinking. But they still provide transformative  applications beyond a non-fungible profile picture. 
 

Image source: Unsplash

Let's address the elephant in the room.  

NFTs are taking a dive. 

After a mass adoption boom over the last few years, with hundreds of thousands of users trading on  marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible, cryptocurrency and NFTs are sinking dramatically. Global  headwinds, such as inflation, the war in Ukraine, a looming recession in the West, and other crises have  created a highly negative environment. As a result, the value of Ethereum (ETH-X) and Bitcoin (BITCOMP) have crashed,  along with the floor price of NFT marketplaces.  

Historically that's been advantageous for investors who want to buy low and sell high, but the already  volatile nature of crypto assets is only adding to the cynicism. 

I'm an NFT artist and the creator of the SupDucks NFT project as well as its incubator MegaVolt Corp.  You can bet, with the current state of the market, that I've dealt with my fair share of "I-told-you-so's"  from cynics and contrarians. Obviously, those like me want NFTs to soar, but that's because we believe  in their inherit utilities; the transformative impact NFTs will have on society and the individual. So,  during this unstable period, I want to reinforce those various utilities and underpin the crypto ethos.  Here's why NFTs signal a new financial frontier, and why you should care.  

For most newbies and noncoiners, the first thing that comes to mind when they hear "NFT" is a profile  picture of a bored ape, stoned cat, or, in our case, a zany duck, among others. Though NFTs go beyond  having a cool pfp and bragging rights, it’s appropriate that the space tied itself to the art world so  quickly.  

Traditional fine art is incredibly lucrative because authentic pieces like paintings, photographs and  sculptures are appreciating assets. In 1890, Van Goghs portrait of Paul Gachet would have merely sold  for a few hundred francs, but today its worth more than $80 million. That's because "Gachet" is unique  and scarce. Any fashion enthusiast accused of sporting fake Yeezies or a knock-off Gucci t-shirt  understands the significance of scarcity.  

We value originality, not replicas, which means digital fungibility is a huge problem for content creators  and artists who want more ownership of their work. With blockchain technology and NFTs, we can have  digital scarcity, allowing artists to bypass gatekeepers like record labels or film distributors that seize  large portions of revenue. Thanks to smart contracts built into blockchain infrastructure, artists can even  receive royalties each time someone resells their tokenized product. 

NFTs are also far more liquid than traditional art. Paintings and sculptures are delicate and difficult to  transport and even more expensive to store over time, while NFT art lives securely on a blockchain and  can be traded on open-source platforms and marketplaces. It’s important to remember that art reflects the culture, society, and period its born into. As digital tools and creative software become more 

accessible, it’s only natural that art will evolve with the times and creators make blockchains their  canvas. 

But like I said, NFTs go beyond artists and the appreciating value of their work, as does the concept of  digital scarcity. In fact, NFT art is only one of several applications. NFTs create financial opportunities  across industries because they afford ownership of digital assets in an increasingly digitized world. 

Consider a country in political strife, corruption, etc. Centralization puts individual property at immense  risk. Ledgers can be forged, and documents can disappear. When asset records are stored on-chain,  however, ownership is globally verifiable. Bad actors can deny inconvenient data, but they cannot  obfuscate the records of ownership. 

Aside from on-chain verification of physical assets, NFTs create new financial growth opportunities  within digital ecosystems and virtual realities. We're a long way off from Ready Player One, but our  hunger for escapism has never been stronger, and there’s no denying that metaverses will play a central  role in years to come. Metaverses like Sandbox have built their own token economies tied to virtual real  estate. Now, users can buy land parcels in hopes that their assets grow along with these immersive  ecosystems.  

You don't even need to step inside a whole new reality just to make money. As we grow more digitized and technology automates jobs across industries, more people will turn to gaming to fill their time, a sector that has exploded after streaming services like Twitch and YouTube Gaming created dedicated  platforms for talented gamers to receive significant compensation. NFTs take that to a new level,  enabling developers to build gaming protocols on chain, often referred to as GameFi, and tokenize  elements within the game’s world just like a metaverse. Consequently, streamers aren't the only ones  who can make money gaming. Any casual gamer can jump into an RPG and play to earn interest-bearing  NFTs. 

On a more ambitious note, crypto and NFTs offer a more feasible alternative to fiat currency as we push  the boundaries of off-world colonization. In terms of big pictures, this is probably the biggest it gets. Historically, fiat currencies don’t scale, primarily due to unsound economic principles, government  intervention, and war. They have a remarkably short lifespan because more paper receipts are lent as  representations of the underlying commodity than what can be legitimately backed, leading to  hyperinflation and devaluation. If fiat currency can’t scale on earth, it certainly won’t on Mars, which is  why decentralized nodes and tokenomics are integral to sustaining an off-world economy. And with a  decentralized network, anyone with access to internet can participate in the financial system, potentially  uplifting more than 1 billion unbanked people across the globe.  

What has always fascinated me most about NFTs is how they intertwine physical assets, digital assets,  and unique experiences. They're foundational to web3, decentralization, and the financial  empowerment of individuals. Pushing against NFTs and crypto is like saying, “We don’t want a  collectively owned future. We want a corporate, government-owned future.” But that mentality stifles  innovation, creativity, and undermines individual liberties. 

Yes, crypto and NFTs have taken a massive hit, and they're still adolescent. The space is still undeniably  volatile and speculative, and novice investors have to educate themselves on the market, read  everything they can get your eyes on, and invest responsibly, because great individual empowerment  comes great individual responsibility. But during this period of global instability, we've lost sight of the 

big picture. NFTs are about more than the profile pictures and status symbols. They democratize and  security; tickets to more financial freedom, a bigger reality, and a more boundless future.  

NFTs and crypto will continue to evolve as incubators fund promising projects, the number of qualified  developers grows, and education of the technology permeates common knowledge just as Web1 and  Web2 have. Until then, NFT enthusiasts and dApp developers are going to take a lot of flak. But  ultimately, the pioneers are easy to spot, because they’re the one pushing things to the next frontier.