The growth of the NFT market has been remarkable in 2021. Since the technology gained more widespread adoption, NFTs have found more use in different technological breakthroughs, including the metaverse.
In this guide, we highlight how NFTs are currently playing a role and being used in the metaverse.
An Intro to NFTs and the Metaverse
A non-fungible token is a unique digital token that represents ownership of a digital asset. The asset could be art, music, video, photo, real estate, or more.
NFTs vary in their pricing, from hundreds to millions of dollars. People ultimately drive these prices through what they are willing to spend on an NFT. For example, an NFT of the first tweet ever was sold for about $3 million, while the most expensive NFT carries a price tag of about $69 million. This NFT is known as the First 5,000 days.
Most NFT activity has been happening on the Ethereum blockchain. However, there are also NFTs in the Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, Ordinal Inscriptions and layer-2 Bitcoin NFTs on Stacks have been making waves in early 2023, filling up the NFT wallet of every NFT-curious Bitcoiners.
The metaverse is a digital world in which anyone can participate, having the ability to live, work, shop, and play wherever they wish in the virtual world. In this world, you can create a digital identity, participate in the virtual economy, and do various activities in the metaverse.
Amid high interest, many developers have come together to build this digital world. However, it’s still too early to tell the success of the metaverse. This presents plenty of opportunities to learn and grow with it.
3 Ways NFTs are Being Used in the Metaverse
Let’s take a look at three use cases of NFTs that already exist in the current iteration of the metaverse.
Virtual Real Estate
NFTs – by offering exclusivity in ownership – are an excellent fit for the metaverse. The metaverse currently seeks to offer the same utility online as it is offline-with respect to land ownership. This means that prospective owners can buy land in the metaverse as they do in real life. This land is usually represented and sold as NFTs. Additionally, someone can rent out a virtual property through NFTs to earn extra income.
Marketing
Luxury brands such as Gucci and Louis Vitton have embraced NFTs in their marketing strategies in the past two years. The undeniable appeal of NFTs to younger clients makes for a great marketing strategy. This shows that businesses can use NFTs to make exclusive offers for digital products before their customers get physical access to the items.
Income Generation
For gamers, or anyone keen on making money through gaming, NFTs offer a great way to earn while having fun. If you’re yet to hear or learn about play-to-earn games, this is your cue to get curious about them.
Through play-to-earn gaming, you can collect or trade tokens for cash every time you earn game credits. Some examples of games that help you do this are Axie Infinity, Cryptokitties, and Gods Unchained, powered by the Ethereum blockchain, where people can easily trade skins and other in-game assets.
There are also numerous opportunities for creatives to earn in the metaverse. An NFT can help you to sell your art and earn royalty fees on subsequent resales of your artwork. If you are a fashion enthusiast, you might want to consider using NFTs to expand your reach into the metaverse. Some entrepreneurs have created digital clothing designs and lines exclusive to customers in the metaverse. While this carries the added benefit of reduced environmental impact, it’s a fun way to explore fashion creativity in a digital age.
Event hosts can also earn through hosting exclusive events and parties, just as Snoop Dogg did by issuing 1,000 private party passes in 2021. These passes gave fans access to his personal lifestyle and an exclusive concert.
What’s Next for NFTs in the Metaverse?
While it’s still early days for the development of the metaverse, NFTs are almost certain to play a role due to their ability to provide verifiable digital ownership of an item or an asset. As such, NFTs can make the journey into the metaverse economically worthwhile.
However, we can say that NFTs have already started making an impact in the metaverse, and it is exciting to see what more innovative roles NFTs will play in this new world going forward.
