What happens to the hype surrounding NFTs during a “crypto winter”?
Since cryptocurrency appeared on the scene in 2008, veteran investors and miners have navigated their fair share of ups and downs in the market. But the recent downturn feels a little different, mostly because crypto has become more mainstream.
Many random investors were introduced to space through NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in 2021 and 2022. The digital art craze became a cultural hotspot when artist Beeple entered into a $ 69 million deal with auction house Christie’s last year. Since then, NFTs have been a rage for brands, artists and collectors.
An NBC survey estimates that one in five adults owns a certain cryptocurrency, while DappRadar – one global app store for decentralized applications – estimates that The trading volume of NFTs in 2021 was almost $ 25 billion.
The talk of a “crypto winter” and the falling price of known currencies such as bitcoin has sent some investors into panic mode. But someone in the NFT area sees an opportunity.
The general downturn in the market can mainly help NFTs to become a more mature product.
“Many people in NFTs are new to crypto. NFTs are what made them take a leap of faith, so they have never experienced a bear market like this before. But most developers in the area came from crypto first, “Everyone went through a crash in 2018 and 2020. And we’ve seen it pick up again. So those of us who have belief in technology and in space, this is a time to accumulate and to build and double,” Sayeed Mehrjerdian told Hypepotamus. “I think one of the problems with the NFT space was that as soon as you launch something, the hype is gone. So you have a community of people who are just constantly mastering you to keep delivering the next one. And that’s not a sustainable way to “and it’s not really happening in other industries. In general, people in technology know that it takes a lot of effort and testing and design to send quality products, and I think the NFT and crypto markets have been much more immature to that.”
Mehrjerdian, educated Georgia Tech and series founder in Web3, blockchain and software, is one of the co-founders of Metaseed Labs. Metaseed helps clients with the backend need to create NFT art, whether it is programmatic generation of the art or to create necessary metadata and smart contracts.
In its first year in business, the company has helped launch some well-known NFT projects, including Alien Frens and Lyrical Lemonade. Just last week, musician Chris Brown helped launch his first NFT collection.
While the crypto market continues on the roller coaster, the Metaseed Labs team is ready to build the next one for the NFT site.
“I think the NFT market was really saturated and there was not much differentiation between many projects … it was just a lot of speculative trading,” the co-founder added. Evan Futterman, an educated Georgia State who now lives in Colorado. “Of course it is not as good for our business to make the whole crypto market fall off a cliff. But at the same time it is also an opportunity, and it weeds out many low-quality people. The companies and people who have vision and financing and who will be and they will be better positioned in the long run. ”
The Metaseed team believes that the crypto downturn will help create a general “shift towards utility” within the NFTs area. That shift can see NFTs move beyond just fun art on Twitter and into practical fintech, e-commerce, legal and even health applications along the way.
“I think one of the problems with the NFT room was that as soon as you launch something, the hype is gone,” he said. Mehrjerdian. “So you have a community of people who are just constantly mastering you to keep delivering the next thing. And it’s not a sustainable way to run a business … and it’s not really happening in other industries. In general, people in technology know that it takes a lot of effort and testing and design to ship quality products, and I think the NFT and crypto markets are much more immature.But because we are in a bear cycle now and it’s not just like a gold rush where you can get in and 100 times your money, it will weed out many of the unreasonable people who do not understand what it takes to build these things … and it will give project founders and developers some quiet time to focus. ”
