NFT user for company settings

managing director i WAGMI game | Digital Marketing Pioneer | Serial entrepreneur.

Let’s face it, NFTs don’t have the best reputation in many ways. In fact, I like to jokingly call them the bad three-letter word. I find that there are several reasons for this misunderstanding.

For some people, it’s a simple lack of education. They have no idea what NFTs are, but they believe the negative headlines. For others, a very limited NFT education gives way to “right-click mentality,” referring to the ability of anyone to technically right-click and save an NFT image, as well as a lack of technological confidence. News is hard to trust, especially in the financial world. But in reality, NFTs are so much more than just JPEGs with a price tag on them. There are countless business applications for them outside of trading in speculative bubble markets. Many people just don’t know it yet.

Background on NFTs

NFTs are now a market estimated to be worth $231 billion by 2030. Yet many people have no idea what they are. The reason for this is simple: NFTs are new. Relatively new, that is. When the internet first started to grow, people thought it was a fad too. It took time for people to open up to it.

Just like the internet once was, I believe NFTs are a new technology. This is by no means a way of saying that NFTs will have an internet-sized impact on the world. It is, however, one way of describing the current phase of NFT adoption. I think more business leaders need to learn what they are and how to utilize them.

While NFTs can be defined as “unique cryptographic tokens that exist on a blockchain and cannot be replicated,” I think there is a simpler way to describe them. Ethereum defines them as “tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique objects.”

News and the news

Ultimately, an NFT is simply a digital asset that you own, provable on the blockchain. Businesses can use NFTs for program memberships, event tickets, access to special events, and even rewards programs. For example, Starbucks recently launched a platform on the Polygon chain. NFTs can be given for free or sold, and since it is what comes with the NFT – not the NFT itself that is valuable – this can be a fairly inexpensive way to attract and retain customers.

The majority of people actually do not know what an NFT is or what they are used for. However, they see countless headlines pointing out NFT scams, scams, exchange problems, carpet pulling and more. One way companies can combat these misconceptions is to simply not use the term NFT, but rather what it is used for: skins or characters in games, membership cards, digital assets, etc.

NFT use cases: the gaming industry

Gaming, tickets, music, art, real estate, voting and public records: NFTs are already impacting industries worldwide. They change them for the better, and they change them for the people.

Not only is there an exciting future for NFTs, but it makes an exciting gift for business owners. For the average business, using this new technology can create opportunities to re-engage new customers. NFTs in the future may even replace outdated database systems as the technology matures and becomes widely accepted.

NFTs have already found a way to make gaming better than it already is. Typically, when consumers spend money on in-game assets, those consumers do not actually own what they are buying. According to Statista, the global gaming audience spent approximately $61 billion on in-game content last year. By 2025, this figure is estimated to be over $74 billion. These figures represent a large sum of money spent on something consumers do not actually own. Web3 gaming uses NFTs to change this.

Not only have NFTs opened up the possibility of in-game ownership, but it has also provided the opportunity to make money in your spare time. When you are in the Web3 gaming space, there have been many Ponzi-like “play to earn” games that have exploded and crashed just as quickly. I think this has contributed to the black eye on Web3 projects. However, changing the language from NFT to digital ownership is only one way to break down the proverbial wall for traditional players. There may be a future of NFT powered games where people can recoup some of the money spent by selling assets on secondary marketplaces.

Change perceptions

Video games that use NFTs have been around longer than many people know. Even in the traditional gaming community, there are many who don’t know anything about NFTs or crypto. In the same way that people don’t know about NFTs in gaming, many people probably don’t know about NFTs in real estate. Ultimately, it is up to business leaders to help change the perception of NFTs. It comes down to championing real-world issues, adding value to the consumer and, from a brand perspective, coming up with other ways to refer to NFTs.

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