Where will non-fungible tokens (NFTs) be in the next few years?
NFTs… Where Will the Future Take Them?
NFTs were, at one point, the big rage of the crypto industry. They saw a lot of action and activity, and within two or three years, the arena was worth billions of dollars and was all the rage of crypto fanatics. However, since then, NFTs have taken a serious dive, and we’re not seeing that many people engaged with them anymore.
In a recent roundtable that saw the participation of several NFT creators and experts, the topic of where these pixelated art tokens are going to be in the next five to ten years raised a lot of questions and delivered a few answers. Each of the participants gave their thoughts and ideas on where these tokens will arrive and what traders can potentially expect.
One of them was Jordan Fried, who introduced the idea of a “soul bound token.” This item would be an NFT that is permanently tied to a single person. It cannot be transferred, sold, or disposed of through conventional means. He commented to the moderator of the panel Rob Nelson:
It would be the Rob Nelson coin. It’d be you. It’d be the roundtable coin for the brand, but it can’t be transferred. It’s non-transferrable. Its soul bound. It’s bound to this account forever, and that’s likely what will capture identity as it’s a version of a non-fungible token, but it’s a non-transferable, non-fungible token… The greatest problem in the NFT space right now is that there’s no one sitting anywhere in the world saying, ‘If I just had an NFT, that would be the solution to my problem.’
The idea of having a token permanently tied to you is a little scary, but Jordan clarified his thoughts a tad more by commenting that these tokens would also be built to resolve various problems being faced by the individual or by the public. He mentioned:
To have a crypto punk meant something about you, but for the technology to actually live up to its promise, you’re going to have to have NFTs that solve real problems. NFTs that actually have real-world value.
No Real-World Value
Right now, most non-fungible tokens are simply seen as collectibles. While some have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the “collectible” nature of most NFTs is what Jordan thinks has led to the demise of the space. He commented that they need to be able to tackle certain issues. They must have real-world use if they’re going to carve out a legitimate space for themselves. He stated:
We’ve got to tokenize actual value as NFTs. Otherwise, the whole purpose of buying an NFT, it’s just not going to be there for most people.
