Why NFTs Matter, Even if You’re Not a Techie
If you have your ear to the metaverse lately, you’re hearing a lot about NFTs (nonfungible tokens). NFTs are a type of digital contract that creates value for digital assets and experiences. With NFTs, original digital content can be bought, sold, and traded just like physical assets. Their value can also be inflated or deflated based on demand and scarcity.
NFTs can be created for just about anything. You might buy an NFT for a piece of digital artwork, for example, or access to a concert by your favorite band.
What does this look like in practice? Say a musician creates a new song and sells it to the highest bidder. The winning bidder receives the song in the form of an NFT. This gives the buyer exclusive access to that song, and while the buyer could copy that song, that copy would be just that, a copy. Just as in the physical world, it would not have the same value as the original. If the owner decides to sell the song, the NFT travels with the song, transferring ownership rights along with it.
NFTs are permanently attached to their digital assets, serving as a certificate of authenticity and locking the content to anyone but the buyer. Even if copies are made, the NFT certifies the original and preserves its value. Even if the asset is trades hands multiple times, the NFT follows the asset across the metaverse and provides evidence of a chain of ownership.
NFTs have tremendous benefit to creators, as well as buyers. Not only do they create value for original digital assets, but they can be set up to provide royalties, too. Royalties can be calculated and paid automatically with every view, use, or play, as well as with every sale or transfer.
Right now, the newness of NFTs is driving frenzied buying and some eyebrow-raising prices. There has been a lot of publicity around the sale of NFTs by the artist Beeple, for example, who sold a 10-second video for $6.6 million and a collage of 5,000 original digital works for a whopping $69 million. Artists ranging from EDM star Deadmau5 and video artist Grimes are selling NFTs, as are major brands, such as the NBA (for trading cards). In a moment of “what was the buyer thinking?” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban even received $1,000 for an original tweet.
NFTs are everywhere, unlocking a digital marketplace with limitless possibilities, including those that apply to everyday life. Want a custom avatar for your favorite game in the metaverse? Buy it as an NFT. Want your favorite sports hero to demonstrate a skill or a move just for you? Buy that as an NFT, too.
But where we really see NFTs going is access to exclusive communities. Examples include the VeeFriends project, as well as the BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club). Think of these NFTs as a key card for access to a country club. In the physical world, once you are a member of a country club, you have access to everything the club offers, including the pool, the golf course, and the events and people there. Likewise in the NFT world, once you buy an NFT for a metaverse community, you have access to everything that community offers, including exclusive access to content, merchandise, and people. (Say, a video chat with your favorite sports figure, musician, or author.) Those NFTs can be traded and exchanged on the secondary markets if you decide to trade it out to someone else who may want access more than the current holder.
While much of the NFT market is currently inflated, that will change over time. Eventually, NFTs will settle down into a mainstream way of merchandising digital and physical content and gaining access to experiences and communities. There will likely come a time when purchasing NFTs will be as familiar to people as buying tickets online or using CashApp or Venmo (remember when those things were new and scary?).
At RealityBLU, we are trying to help that process along by making it simple and easy. We are currently working on an integration that will allow people to create NFTs the same way they create AR products like RealityBLU Holotwins, RealityBLU Portals, and RealityBLU 3D objects. Once the integration is complete, you will be able to upload your digital assets to our WebAR platform and create NFTs with the same speed and ease of use as you do other AR experiences.
So stay tuned. These are exciting times!
About RealityBLU
RealityBLU's web-based platform enables non-technical marketers and designers to create and publish augmented reality (AR) scenes that put People, Places, and Things into the Metaverse. RealityBLU eliminates the technical barriers to implementing and measuring AR content scenes by providing marketers with an intuitive interface and workflow that allow them to attract and delight more customers. RealityBLU has acquired 1,000+ users and has attracted household name brands across many vertical markets.
CONTACT:
Stefan Agustsson, CEO
RealityBLU
635 3rd St., Beloit, WI, 53511
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stefan@realityblu.com