How Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs) are Shaping the Digital World: Insights from NFT.NYC 2023 Conference
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are transforming the digital world with their wide range of applications beyond just digital art. Despite the market downturn in 2022, more NFT projects are coming online with innovative use cases. The NFT.NYC 2023 conference provided an opportunity for Cointelegraph’s team to learn first-hand from experts, projects, companies, and the NFT community on how the technology is shaping the digital world. Here are the key highlights of the three-day event:
NFT Games Show Signs of Maturing
The first batch of NFT-based gaming projects is entering the market after years of development. The gaming sector sees NFTs as a way to blend real life and games. Developers and companies believe that NFTs are going to change the way users collect digital goods. For example, Origin Protocol co-founder Matthew Liu believes that interoperability across platforms is going to make it easier for users to collect digital goods. Alex Connolly, co-founder of Immutable, has noticed an increase in competition in the gaming sector as more projects and developers seek to address blockchain-based challenges such as interoperability.
Linus Chung, vice president of product at Origin Protocol, believes that companies should focus on significantly improving one pain point in people’s lives that traditional methods do not solve when trying to bring NFTs into their business. He believes that the last bull market has shown that people will go through all of the hoops of acquiring crypto, getting a MetaMask wallet because there is some carrot at the end of that tunnel that’s way better than the traditional way of doing things.
Real Estate NFTs
The tokenization of investment assets is one of the primary targets of NFTs. The real estate industry is one of the industries that NFTs are looking to disrupt. Ripple, for example, is partnering with other businesses to develop real estate marketplaces and tokenized NFTs. Emi Yoshikawa, Ripple’s vice president of strategy and operations, noted that real estate is one of the big focuses of the market that they are very excited about. Japan is one of the leading countries that are driving the tokenization market in Asia.
A Decentralized Economy Powered by NFTs
Many blockchain projects, coins, and protocols are decentralized on the back end, but their infrastructure relies on centralized ecosystems, exposing them to security and censorship risks. Speaking at NFT.NYC, Solon Labs CEO Maxwell Lyman noted that NFTs may play a crucial role in achieving real decentralization. He believes that there’s something that he calls global personal capitalism that’s going to be enabled by the proliferation of nonfungible tokens. It’s the capability of anyone in the world to control and monetize their personal information, their activities or their creations.
Uncertainty about NFT Regulation
Legal experts highlighted during the event’s panels that NFTs are facing the same regulatory uncertainty as the broader crypto industry, especially in the United States. A significant question in the space is whether NFTs can be considered securities. Katrina Paglia, chief compliance officer of Pantera Capital, stated that the venture firm is relying on recent enforcement actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission to gauge regulators’ views on digital assets. She noted that until the industry gets the clarity it desperately needs and wants, they’re relying on the recent enforcement actions.
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