The Future’s Tokenized (and it’s Bright!)

It’s no secret the NFT space (and crypto in general) has been battling against some major headwinds recently. What began as a boom in mostly PFP-focused NFTs last summer, has now become a competition akin to ‘survival of the fittest.’ But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, except for those projects that obviously don’t survive, but for those that do, what awaits is a blue ocean of opportunity and growth.

The market became flooded with scam projects, useless “utility” tokens, worthless vanity drops, and a tsunami of stolen and stock images being passed off as ‘original’ work

Throw your mind back to early 2021 and the artist known as Beeple sold an NFT for a record-breaking $69 million - catapulting the acronym into the mainstream media. What followed was a digital gold-rush of artists, creators, brands, and agencies, all launching their own NFTs, Bored Ape Yacht Club being one of the most notable, and OG projects like CryptoPunks began sky-rocketing in value.

But, like anything that promises a healthy and quick return on investment (whether it’s time or money being invested) the market became flooded with scam projects, useless “utility” tokens, worthless vanity drops, and a tsunami of stolen and stock images being passed off as ‘original’ work. It was a mess.

By the beginning of 2022, the bear market had firmly gripped the crypto-space and clawed its way into NFTs, resulting in interest in the latter falling to an all-time low. At least, that’s what the headlines have been telling us.

But, while the data showed web searches for “NFTs” dropped dramatically in early 2022, and NFT sales slowed in Q1, this is simply the inevitable ‘correction’ that follows the fervor. You see, if you look beyond the click-bait headlines, you don’t have to look that hard to see the inevitable - the future is tokenized!

Almost ten years ago when the sharing economy (gig to some) was just finding its feet Uber’s first investment round was for $11 million, and Airbnb’s first round raised a paltry $585,000

The leaked Yuga Labs/BAYC pitch deck, while rebuffed by their CEO, gave everyone an unparalleled look into what the biggest name in NFTs plans for now, and well into the future. A roadmap and a vision that convinced one of the largest Web3 investor funds - a16z (a part of Andreesen Horowitz), to pour $450 million into, what was essentially, a collection of 10,000 cartoon apes just a year ago.

Speaking of Andreesen Horowitz, and VCs in general, hundreds of billions of dollars are being pumped into Web3 start-ups, technology, and research. Hundreds. Of billions. During a downturn.

Almost ten years ago when the sharing economy (gig to some) was just finding its feet Uber’s first investment round was for $11 million, and Airbnb’s first-round raised a paltry $585,000 from Sequoia Capital. By 2024 the sharing economy is set to reach a market value of $1.5 trillion. Do you see where this is going?

The trend for NFTs and everything Web3 isn’t even close to declining - it’s just getting better, more refined. Right now, there’s a small batch of ‘winners’ led by Yuga Labs, Doodles, Azuki, and a handful of others.

What these projects have all learned, early on, is the key to success is UTILITY! Of course, a strong community, an ambitious roadmap, and appearing in pop culture (memes!), or boasting celebrity backers, all help. But when the digital sun sets at the end of each day in the Metaverse, it’s projects offering a clear utility and representing a rock-solid Web3 identity and agenda that will win the race.

The ‘blue-chip’ projects exist in small numbers, which means there’s a lot of room for up-and-comers to take a substantial position. After all - cartoon images will only get you so far!

A project I’ve written about before - Uhive - is a great example of a Web3/Metaverse project that caught my attention for its commitment to the principles I mentioned above (they also authored a pretty good piece on the Five Laws of the Metaverse). Now, I’m not saying their take on the fundamentals of success in Web3 is gospel, but, they do seem to have grasped what will make Web3 platforms achieve a higher degree of success. Whether or not their interpretation is flawed - or brilliant - time will tell.

A great example of how Uhive is taking one of the major principles of Web3 - tokenization, is through an affiliate program they recently launched. How it works is; instead of affiliates selling products like a VPN (hawked by influencers like PewDiePie on his YouTube channel), Uhive’s taking those same principles (driving a sale and taking a commission), but applying it to a social network that facilitates the trading of digital assets.

And, instead of leveraging a product like software or even physical goods to generate sales, you can connect your Uhive account to users that you ‘brought’ to the platform, and profit from 25% of the transactions they make. This is all connected by an immutable and shareable code (NFT) that’s generated (minted) via the Ethereum blockchain, and permanently connected to your Uhive account. And the best part - anyone can sign up!

Projects like Uhive that have taken a Web2 tool (affiliate marketing) and tokenized it, adopting it for Web3, leveraging the power of blockchain, NFTs, and democratization, will shape the future.