Blockchain technology served as the basis for the creation of cryptocurrency, an electronic analog of money in cash. Tokens, surrogate to securities, appeared later. The next step was the digitization of products from the real world. Non-fungible tokens, the ones our article will be about, allow you to produce digitized goods and services. But let’s do some groundwork and start from the beginning by diving into this exciting topic.
Few Words about NFT itself
Face it: an internet user has an awful lot of things of a digital nature: pictures, videos, game items, cloud documents. Sorry to destroy your worldview, but no one actually owns them. Facebook Inc. efficiently and effectively manages Instagram photos. The company can delete them at any moment. Or take another example: Counter-Strike. The shooter sells weapons, but Valve Software reserves the right to change or delete them.
Things change once NFT comes into play. It grants users a property right in digital goods. A non-fungible token is kind of a label that stores a link to any product. If you have a token — you own the product that is described in it. If you don’t have a token, you own nothing. So, the NFT weapon in the game will be sent to the player’s crypto wallet and the developer will no longer have any control over it.
Anything can be represented in the form of NFT: a barrel of oil, a bottle of wine, a T-shirt, a piece of music, a game item, and even a cryptocurrency. What is more, tokenized items acquire new unique properties that modify the buyer-seller relationship. While NFT is most commonly associated with digital art, it is capable of so much more. Its scope of application has been broadened.
Blockchain Games
Games with some of the items of memorabilia are the most commonplace use of NFT. The CryptoKitties game is the first successful project using non-fungible tokens. It became so popular that players were overloading the Ethereum blockchain due to high activity at the end of 2007.
CryptoKitties is about breeding virtual kittens. You can breed two of your own Kitties together. The rarer the appearance, the more valuable it is. Pets can be exchanged or sold for ETH at any time.
Tokenization of non-fungible game items is already spread over many game genres: Gods Unchained, Splinterlands, Axie Infinity, Blockchain Cuties, Neon District, My Crypto Heroes, Sorare, Epics.
Digital Art
If you want to assign the copyright for digital data, you need to collect all necessary documents, make a request and spend a lot of money. We don’t know what you think, but for us, that version is a loser. You’d better create an NFT — a unique digital thing represented by a single copy that is hard to steal. The token will contain a link to the work and the address of the owner and therefore serve as proof of ownership.
Tokenized digital art objects have another admirable if not particularly mind-blowing feature. In a smart contract, you can specify a condition under which the creator gets a percentage of the sales. This opportunity is provided by Rarible, a service for creating and selling digital collectibles secured with blockchain
Ownership and exclusivity make physical works of art valuable. In the digital world, the value is provided by NFT. There are artists who have already started experimenting with the technology. The projects like Open Sea, Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, Known Origin, MakersPlace и Rare Art Labs have developed platforms for publishing and searching digital artworks.
Blockchain Domains
The third most successful industry in terms of NFT sales is occupied by domain services. Their products are similar to traditional domain names but are based on revolutionary technology.
Ethereum Name Service, a direct alternative to the usual Domain Name System, allows you to create a website with the “.eth” ending. It started operating in May 2017. The turnover is about 170,000 ETH. The coins paid for the rent are blocked by the smart contract for as long as the participant owns the domain name. By purchasing a name for the site, the user receives the ERC-721 standard tokens, which can be sold on the open market.
The domains “.crypto” by Unstoppable Domains and “.kred” by NFT Kred work in a very similar manner. Thanks to the blockchain domain, sites can become completely censorship-resistant — no one can take them down. In the future, it will be possible to sell other services in the form of NFT: an app subscription, access to online library resources, freelance art, or even expert advice.
Virtual Worlds
This individual digital asset class ought to be paying particular attention. We are talking about land in virtual worlds. It is not associated with any object in the real world. Their value lies in the experience that is hard to gain in real life.
Unlike games, there is no mandatory plot in the virtual world. This is an attempt to recreate reality in the digital space and allow you maximum freedom of action. For this purpose, NFTs is an indispensable tool.
The most popular virtual world on the blockchain is Decentraland. Every piece of land is an NFT, which is called LAND. Users can build playgrounds, have parties, play games, organize exhibitions. One of the successful projects in this area is Battle Racers, an action-packed blockchain racing game.
Thanks to NFT, people can tokenize things inside virtual worlds. What a time to be alive, right?
Debit Cards
Last but certainly not least. Some companies started issuing cryptocurrency debit cards (both virtual and physical). Uquid a case in point. However, it differs from other platforms in one aspect. The company’s cards support almost 90 different assets, including BTC, ETH, DASG, LTC, XRP, XMR, etc.
The British company offers financial support for federal currencies such as USD, EUR, and GBP. A huge advantage here is that Uquid allows you to withdraw funds from ATMs located in more than 34 different countries. The cardholders can get payments from PayPal customers, gaming sites, eth.
The service is in great demand among travelers or individuals, who do not have a bank account. No doubt, one major reason for the concept’s attractiveness to so many users is that they can pay with the card for various goods and services. For example in a drugstore, supermarket, public transport, or pay for utility costs. It is available for citizens in 100-plus countries.
Among the platform’s benefits are:
- Safety. Thanks to the state-of-the-art technology, you and your money are safe.
- Privacy. Pay the easy way without blowing your sensitive data.
- Speed. The platform allows you to make payments in a matter of seconds.
Multicurrency. Convert one currency to another with minimal headaches.
