Recently the venerable Bill Gates seemed to slam the door on the concept of NFs (Non-Fungible Tokens - ownership of digital properties like art and music). A lot of people have become disheartened by the craze. But they shouldn't.
So many of the initial offerings were hyped up pretty much worthless offerings that only seemed important because they were the first to the party. Early adopters traded crazily amongst themselves and created value bubbles for what is pretty much just a bunch of junky jpgs and gifs.. Those Bored Apes and Cryptopunks are about as meaningful as any other disposable fast fashion items. Except instead of being cheaply made wearables made to last fifteen minutes we saw releases of digital graphics in collections of 10,000 - each slightly different from the other - designed to cash in on the mania surrounding this new concept.
But on the fringes are real artists doing what we do with our relentless optimism slowly creating actual value and relevance with our offerings. Personally I would have loved to sell some of my digital paintings for thousands of dollars or ETH (ethereum crypto) but so far I've only managed to sell a few for actual USD well under $100 each. That seems more sustainable and reasonable doesn't it? And I plan to keep going in this way as the metaverse gains cultural traction.
NFTs aren;t going away. Just the opposite! They are becoming increasingly legitimized thanks to the real artists and creatives who are exploring and participating in the concept. My personal goals with my own NFTs are still to:
create digital sculpture parks
sell digital paintings collectors can own and hang in their own digital spaces
collaborate with other creatives in this wonderful Web 3 world
use the concept to create more joy
What's new, right?
So, yeah, don't get caught up in the positive OR the negative hype. NFTs are here to stay and as the year progresses I believe you're going to see opportunities for this concept to have more and more relevance in your own life. After all, who among us expected Zoom to become so normal for meetings, huh? Welp, I believe online spaces are going to become a normal way we gather together. We're going to want them to look cool so we're going to put digital art and other collectibles in them.
