On July 1, 2020, the partner of Polynexus Capital, Andrew Steinwold, detailed that the sales of blockchain-powered non-fungible
tokens (NFTs) are about to cross the $100 million mark. The popularity
of NFTs has grown massive since 2017, as blockchain cards, collectibles,
digital artwork, virtual land parcels, and extensible virtual game
items have become all the rage.
Blockchain-Fueled Non-Fungible Token Assets Close to $100M in Sales
Andrew
Steinwold the managing partner at Polynexus Capital is a big believer
in non-fungible token (NFT) solutions built using blockchain technology.
NFTs have been around for years and the first mention of NFT technology
stemmed from the Mastercoin white paper in 2012. Over the years,
news.Bitcoin.com has reported on a number of blockchain projects that
leverage NFT solutions like Counterparty’s Rare Pepe trading cards, Spells of Genesis cards, Cryptokitties, extensible game items and rewards, and many more unique concepts.
written on the blog called “Bankless,” Steinwold notes that the NFT
sales have amassed close to a $100 million worth of lifetime trade
volume. The data stems from the web portal nonfungible.com,
which gives a comprehensive overview of the NFT ecosystem. Steinwold
thinks that the $100 million mark is just the start of the NFT evolution
and the economy will grow much bigger going forward. “I believe NFTs
will be a trillion-dollar market someday,” Steinwold stressed. “That
means $999.9 billion in future opportunities. We’re just .01% of the way
in.” Steinwold added:
We’ve talked about redemption NFTs in the past. We’ve learned about NFTs across gaming, art, culture, collectibles, and domains.
But we’ve never zoomed out to look at the market as a whole. What are
the categories? collectibles, gaming, worlds, art, culture. Which
categories are winning? Volumes, value, [and] projects.
Close to 20,000 Opensea Wallets and $2.5M in Monthly NFT Trade Volume
Steinwold’s
data shows there are 18,552 wallets on Opensea and there is $2.5
million in global NFT trade volume on a monthly basis. As of June 5,
2020, the total lifetime trade volume of NFTs is around $96.1 million so
far. The average price is around $20.90 per NFT according to
nonfungible.com and Steinwold’s statistics.
December 2017 as our starting point, the NFT market has only been
around for ~2.5 years, an extremely small amount of time compared to
bitcoin (11 years) or traditional markets (hundreds of years),”
Steinwold highlighted. “While monthly trade volumes are low at roughly
$2M per month, the NFT market has seen a steady increase over time.”
Steinwold says the aforementioned data shows just how early it is when
it comes to NFT technology.
“The above stats show just how early
we are in a market that one day could be worth trillions of dollars — Of
course, that trillion-dollar figure will only be reached once there’s a
functioning metaverse, but I strongly believe we are headed in that direction,” Steinwold said. The Polynexus Capital partner further stated:
Perhaps the most shocking statistic is the number of wallets on Opensea:
about 18,500 wallets have either purchased or sold an NFT. Since
Opensea is the dominant NFT marketplace, this metric should give us a
rough indication of the current number of NFT users overall.
Some
of the projects Steinwold mentions include NFT ideas like Cryptopunks,
Cryptokitties, Avastars, Gods Unchained, Axie Infinity, My Crypto
Heroes, Crypto Space Commanders, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, Somnium
Space, The Sandbox, Async Art, Superrare, Nifty Gateway, Knownorigin,
Makersplace, n0wear, Zora, and Foundation. Steinwold also mentions the
possibilities of “ticketing for events, property titles, [and] digital
identity” concepts.
pepe and Spells of Genesis trading cards were one of the earliest
versions of colorful and artistic versions of NFT technology.
number of blockchains provide NFT technology but the most dominant is
Ethereum by a long shot. Other blockchains like Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
can also be leveraged to created NFTs. In August 2019, the Simple
Ledger Protocol (SLP) developer, James Cramer, announced the launch of
the Electron Cash SLP version 3.5, which allowed the creation of
non-fungible tokens that can be grouped together by a single ID.
News.Bitcoin.com has published a step-by-step walkthrough on how to create non-fungible assets and collectible tokens with Bitcoin Cash.
The Growth of the Metaverse Is a Very Big Deal
Moreover, Forbes published an editorial
on the coming of the metaverse on July 5 and exclaimed that “it’s a
very big deal.” Columnist Cathy Hackl writes that today’s foundations
concerning the metaverse are being built as we speak.
“Today, the
metaverse is a shared virtual space where people are represented by
digital avatars (think Ready Player One),” Hackl writes. She adds:
The
virtual world constantly grows and evolves based on the decisions and
actions of the society within it. Eventually, people will be able to
enter the metaverse, completely virtually (i.e. with virtual reality) or
interact with parts of it in their physical space with the help of
augmented and mixed reality.
NFTs are
going to be a big part of this growth according to Steinwold, and the
innovations are just getting started. “When comparing these physical
uses to gamers doing some new behavior in a virtual environment, the
pace of innovation is often much higher in the digital world,”
Steinwold’s observation concludes. “Going forward, I expect more
differentiated NFT categories to arise and NFT market activity to
increase dramatically.”
source link : https://news.bitcoin.com/the-tokenized-metaverse-non-fungible-token-sales-to-surpass-100-million/
