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NFTs have changed the digital world and industries from art to gaming to investing. But non-fungible tokens are yet to see their full potential.
Don’t know what NFTs are? Check out our NFT explained post for all you need to know.
But what is the future of NFTs? What are the latest NFT trends and applications? And what new NFT trends will we see in 2022 and beyond?
We find the latest and upcoming trends in
- NFT Gaming
- NFT Ticketing
- Avatars & PFP NFTs
- NFT fragmentation
- Digital twin NFT
- AI NFT
- NFT streaming
- NFT art
- Medical NFT
- Financial NFT
- Scaling blockchains and websites
1. NFT Gaming
There are now hundreds of games built entirely around NFTs. NFTs are being integrated into existing games. And NFTs are even showing potential for changing the way in-game marketplaces operate.
Blockchain technology and NFTs have massive potential for the gaming industry. And games like Axie Infinity and Blankos Block Party are making waves with play-to-earn (P2E) models which are making gamers real money.
The Metaverse
If you haven’t heard about the metaverse, it’s essentially a digitally shared space which combines virtual and physical reality. Check out for more info.
Many are touting the metaverse as the future of online interactions and the next stage for the internet. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced Facebook’s change of name to Meta, and the company’s intention to become “a metaverse company“. Meta plans to become a virtual space combining the realms of work, entertainment, and social interaction.
Think of the metaverse like the real world, only digital. You can interact with others, explore, go shopping, and complete challenges. What NFTs enable in this space is the same non-fungibility of assets we see in the real world.
2. NFT Ticketing
Creating tickets as NFTs provides greater control over the resale market, safer ticket storage, and the ability for tickets to be considered digital collectibles.
The future of NFTs in ticketing offers opportunities for lifetime value, exclusive access, and extra incentives for buyers. Some innovative applications of NFT ticketing include:
- Kings of Leon selling NFTs that entitle buyers to lifetime front row seats at their tours.
- WarnerMedia’s DC Comics giving out comic book NFTs along with tickets to their DC FanDome event.
- Gary Vee’s Vee Friends NFTs.
- Mark Cuban’s announcement he wants to bring NFT ticketing to the NBA.
- An NFT of Andy Murray’s Wimbledon 2013 win, which included two VIP tour experiences and Centre Court tickets to Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Final 2022.
- Coinbase’s integration of NFT merchandise into the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York, giving its users a free, one-of-a-kind NFT which also granted access to the VIP lounge.
3. Avatars & PFP NFTs
The NFT profile picture (PFP) and avatar projects are some of the most successful in NFT history.
10,000 CryptoPunk NFTs were algorithmically generated and given away for free in 2017 to any interested party with an ETH wallet. Fast-forward to 2021, and the cheapest of the 10,000 is worth over $400,000, and over $4 billion has traded hands over the NFT series.
PFP NFTs have become far more than just a series of JPEGs.
Twitter has just announced a monumental move to make NFT PFPs verifiable.
You could currently set any NFT as your Twitter profile picture. But Twitter’s new technology would allow users to verify their NFT ownership and show a small Ethereum checkmark beside their NFTs.
4. NFT fragments
Fragmentation is essentially breaking up an NFT into smaller pieces (ERC-20 tokens) so people can purchase small parts of an expensive NFT.
By fragmenting an NFT, it can be broken up into millions of little pieces, or shards, and people can buy their share of the NFT at a lower price.
5. Digital twin NFT
A digital twin is a digital copy of a physical product or asset. Essentially it allows for a digital record of ownership of physical assets.
How can anyone be certain their asset is the real deal?
The quality of counterfeit products has greatly improved from what they used to be, and in virtually every industry you can think of. If you can make a dollar, then a counterfeiter is going to find a way to exploit that demand.
With digital twin NFTs, physical items would be linked to an NFT and stored on a decentralized blockchain that’s near-impossible to manipulate.
The NFTs aren’t the physical items, but a tool for verification of those items. Think of it like a receipt or a certificate of authenticity that is secured, publicly accessible, and holds the full history of the item.
6. AI NFT
Alongside blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) is the next major disruptor in tech. So it should be no surprise the two are being combined.
AI generated art
In 2018, Obvious Art sold an artwork created by an AI called GAN at Christie’s for over $400,000. But the introduction of NFTs has made the value of digital assets widely recognized, and today new AI projects are spitting out new artworks and minting them as NFTs every day.
iNFTs
The second major intersection of NFTs and AI is intelligent NFTs (iNFTs).
iNFTs are NFTs that are given an AI personality. You can have conversations with them, they can learn new things and change their personality, and they live on the blockchain.
In the future, your iNFT could live in your virtual home in Facebook’s metaverse. When you’re not online, your friends could come by your virtual home to talk to your personal AI, who’s imbued with your personality.
7. NFT streaming and community-owned entertainment
There is a potential for the NFT creator economy goes far beyond empowering visual artists and changing the art world.
NFT music
The musicians can sell part ownership of the song to fans and investors while maintaining their majority stake.
Along with the artist who made the song, you’d make money off the song going viral. You’d get to play the song at parties and tell your friends you’re a part-owner of it. You’d even be able to sell your share of the song at a profit.
NFT movies and TV shows
The Stoner Cats are around $1,000 (0.3 ETH) as of writing, and there are only 10,400 in existence. There are almost 5,000 cat owners, and these are the only people who have access to the show.
You may ask why anyone would pay $1,000 to watch an animated series. But buyers get more than that.
By purchasing a Stoner Cat, you are helping to fund the future of the series. You get to vote on the plot of the show for future episodes. You become a part of the Stoner Cat community. And you have an asset that could appreciate in value if the show and project grow in popularity.
And this is just the beginning for NFTs entering the world of entertainment:
- Fox Entertainment is putting $100 million behind several NFT projects including a new animated series on the blockchain
- Warner Bros released collectible NFTs along with the debut of the film Dune
- Vuele recently released an Anthony Hopkins film as an NFT
- Steve Aoki has secured funding for a new NFT show
- Disney is releasing digital collectible NFTs paired with subscriptions to Disney+
- Jambb is letting comedians sell jokes and comedy specials as NFTs
8. NFTs and fine art
Anyone who knows anything about NFTs knows they’ve revolutionized the concept of digital art.
NFT Art funds
We’re likely to not only see new digital artworks created and sold as NFTs, but galleries and private funds minting digital twin artworks.
QR codes could appear beside every painting in galleries to verify their authenticity. Art investors could demand NFTs alongside their purchase of classical artworks
Destroying art, creating NFTs
In the world of NFTs, burning means destroying an NFT. The burning of one NFT is usually used to create scarcity and raise the value of other NFTs.
This takes the digital twin to a new level. The physical item is destroyed, and all that’s left is the NFT.
9. NFTs and health
Aimedis is working to change that. They’ve launched the world’s first medical and scientific NFT marketplace, allowing medical data to be bought and sold as NFTs.
Patients could transfer data to NFT and sell their medical data to pharmaceutical companies. This empowers patients to own and monetize their personal medical information, providing new revenue streams to those willing to take part.
10. NFTs and finance
In the third quarter of 2021, the sales volume of NFTs was an estimated $10.7 billion. That kind of money doesn’t get spent without capturing the attention of the financial world.
Let’s say you have a million-dollar NFT in your digital wallet, but no money in your bank. You see an investment opportunity that you believe will result in reliable returns, but you’re not willing to part with your precious NFT. Services like Drops let you take loans by putting your NFTs up as collateral. Think of it as a mortgage, you leverage the asset you own to create liquidity.
The world of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance is booming, and NFTs definitely have a seat at the table.
- Among the speculation about the future of NFTs in finance are claims NFTs could solve the problems of financing long supply chains
- Numerous venture capitalist firms focused now solely on investing in NFT projects and Web 3.0
- Even Visa is entering the NFT scene. They spent $150,000 on a CryptoPunk, and announced they’ll be “laying the groundwork to enable adoption of NFTs and other assets in the future.”
11. Scaling the blockchains, scaling the websites
As uptake of cryptocurrencies and NFTs soars, thought leaders in the crypto space are concerned blockchains won’t be able to handle the increased data storage and transaction volume.
Just like blockchains, websites and servers are not infinitely scalable. Websites have capacities, and many new NFT projects are confronting the issue of not being able to scale their systems to match the high demand for NFTs.
The future of NFTs
The NFT space is fast-changing. While writing this, new NFT projects popped up every day.
The future these NFT trends depict is an interesting one. While many people are concerned about the implications of the metaverse and the rise of AI, it’s a future that’s full of possibility.
