Not only digital art: how NFT can become useful
Non-fungible tokens have been the #1 topic throughout 2021. Distinguished digital art projects, token sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, marketing collaborations from Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and other high-profile projects have fueled the hype. According to Coinmarketcap, the market capitalization of non-fungible tokens has already crossed the $10 billion mark. Despite the exciting success story, there are still opinions that NFTs are inherently worthless. In our opinion, this is not the case and we see an excellent potential for the development of NFT projects with utility. Here are 5 new use cases for NFT that we are looking forward to.
Real estate. We spend a lot of time and money searching, buying and processing real estate transactions. There are many difficulties: false information in ads, high commissions of realtors, non-transparent history of objects, bureaucratic delays in registration, etc. NFT technologies can solve most of these problems. For example, all information about an object can be written in a token — the history of construction and modifications, the number of owners, price changes, and so on. In addition, NFTs can be used to verify ownership, facilitate transactions, and complete a deal.
The medicine. In many countries, the patient does not have a general medical record or permanent access to it. At best, a general medical history is stored in health insurance databases. But if a person does not have insurance, or he received medical care in another country, the information is lost. The entire medical history of a person can be stored in the form of NFT from birth and does not depend on a medical provider, city or country. Blockchain technologies will ensure the security of this data — all medical information will be available only to authorized workers. Doctors will not need to spend time getting information from the patient, and hospitals will not need to spend server resources for storing medical records. Access to this information by research companies will help make breakthroughs in medicine and drug development.
Product authenticity guarantee. People deal with food counterfeits every day. Most of all, this concerns the market of medicines, nutritional supplements and luxury alcohol. When a person buys a fake bottle of Chateau Margaux 78, he only risks money, but taking fake medicines can be very harmful to health. The NFT ID for each product will guarantee authenticity, quality composition and all the way from the manufacturer to the buyer.
Copyright and patent law. Intellectual property is one of the most defenseless. It can be difficult to prove the authorship or origin of an idea. Patent law is also imperfect, because the decision to grant a patent lies with third parties, who are often less competent. There have been cases in history when all the glory for an invention went to the one who managed to file an application with the patent office, and not to the creator. NFT can put an end to disputes over the protection of intellectual property — the data in the token is immutable and will work as evidence in court. In addition, with the help of NFT, it is possible to assign the rights to any part of the invention to the author, which is important when working in a team and is impossible in the current copyright.
Games and the Metaverse. NFTs are already actively used in the gaming industry — the GameFi segment is growing and we have already written about it. Avatars, clothes, ammunition and other in-game attributes are gradually becoming the property of the players, not the game publisher. However, there is room for improvement. For example, if your avatar is NFT, it is easier to protect it from hacking and data loss. In addition, it will simplify all money transactions in the game and make them safe. The use of NFT technologies will speed up the cross-platform transition: one character — different games.
We have not listed all possible areas — the potential of the NFT is wider and is able to eventually defeat the bureaucracy. Of course, there are environmental hurdles — the high carbon footprint of NFTs. But with the transition of Ethereum to the new proof-of-stake protocol and the appearance of tokens in greener networks, this problem can be solved. The future is not as far away as it seems, more and more useful tokens are being created — for example, a new Alfa Romeo SUV with an NFT guarantee that collects all the information on the operation of the car. Let’s see who’s next.