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Analysis of the Seven Development Stages of NFT: Evolution from Digital Art to Metaverse Games and Future Trends
The Evolution Process, Development Trends and Future Directions of NFT
NFTs are gradually entering the public eye, and their evolution can be roughly divided into seven stages: star cards/digital art, avatar OG, generative art, GameFi, PFP avatar parties, decentralized NFTs, and metaverse games. By organizing this, we can summarize the characteristics and trends of NFT development:
In addition, five directions worth paying attention to for future NFTs:
The development of NFTs can be divided into seven stages:
The initial explosion of NFTs in early 2021 was mainly represented by trading cards like NBA Top Shot and digital art represented by Beeple's works. During this period, NFTs gained popularity primarily due to the extremely high prices of individual items, which were more about collectible value, lacking in functionality, liquidity, use cases, and social attributes. However, it was also at this time that people began to realize the advantages of NFTs and digital art, such as clear copyright, reduced storage and maintenance costs, and richer forms of expression. From the perspective of creators, NFTs also created revenue streams for long-tail artists.
CryptoPunk is the originator of avatar NFTs, launched in June 2017 by Larva Labs with a total of 10,000 pixel avatars, achieving total sales of approximately $1.48 billion, and consistently holding the top position in NFT collectibles, with a floor price reaching 108 ETH. The important significance of CryptoPunk lies in its representation of the cultural value of Ethereum beyond its financial value. Regardless of what the significance of CryptoPunk is, in the long run, it will be assigned an increasingly higher value due to its historical status, originality, and scarcity. Its status will not be shaken in the short term, and its position in NFTs can be compared to that of BTC in crypto, being the number one blue-chip NFT and a symbol of identity and status.
Generative art refers to artworks automatically created by computer algorithms, where artists define the creative process by writing programs and introduce randomness to the works through Seeds that trigger changes in the code. Generative art is a collaborative artistic result between humans and computers. Art Blocks is the largest trading platform for generative artworks, with historical transaction volumes nearing 1 billion USD, making it the third largest after Axie Infinity and Crypto Punks. In the future, the scale of generative art is still very small compared to traditional art, but its growth rate is rapid, and we remain optimistic about this sector.
GameFi driven by Axie Infinity can be said to be the most talked-about track of the NFT summer in 2021. The Play to Earn model transforms user spending in traditional gaming into earning through participation in games. According to Coinmarketcap data, as of October 8, 2021, the market capitalization of the gaming track has reached 17 billion USD, accounting for nearly 40% of the entire NFT market cap. We believe this track is the most capable of attracting ordinary users to participate so far. In addition, gaming is also the direction that can provide scenarios for NFTs and the Metaverse, making it the most important landing point of the Metaverse.
The popularity of NFT profile picture parties is something we won't elaborate on here; it is another important component of this year's NFT summer, aside from GameFi. Currently, profile picture NFTs are primarily led by two major blue-chip NFTs: Crypto Punk and Bored Ape Yacht Club, and this situation is unlikely to change in the short term. Additionally, a large number of profile picture projects continue to emerge every day. We believe that in the future, profile picture NFTs need more empowerment: buyers should receive ongoing benefits after purchasing the NFTs, and these benefits should not be limited to one-time rewards like other NFT profile pictures or accessories. Better empowerment includes, for example, access in metaverse scenarios or the introduction of token incentive systems. We believe that only through empowerment can holders gain more value from profile picture NFTs beyond just JPEGs.
The representative of decentralized NFTs is undoubtedly Loot. Loot can become the representative project of the new generation of NFTs mainly due to the following four characteristics: 1. Directly minting through smart contracts; 2. A bottom-up community-driven approach; 3. Innovative format and minimalistic design; 4. Great potential for future imagination. The most important significance of Loot lies in its provision of a paradigm for decentralized NFTs, adopting a community-driven bottom-up model that shifts the creative rights of NFTs from the project team to the community, truly igniting the immense creativity of the community. What is most anticipated about Loot is the subsequent ecosystem created by players and all the possibilities.
The representative of meta-games is the game Rarity created by Andre Cronje, the founder of yearn, on Fantom. Rarity can be strictly seen as a clone of Loot; Loot has 8 equipment settings, while Rarity has 11 adventure characters, with subsequent gameplay determined by the developers. We view the characters in Rarity as a kind of game atom, and members of the community collaboratively write the game. We believe that Rarity's advantage lies in the active promotion by AC personally and the Fantom team behind it. AC previously announced on social media a $100,000 prize for Rarity developers, and he also actively promotes the project's direction on Twitter and personally selects ecological construction projects. This has allowed Rarity's ecosystem to develop both the bottom-up enthusiasm of the community and a unified directional control. The future development of meta-games represented by Rarity holds many possibilities; let us wait and see.
Characteristics and Trends of NFT Development:
Through the analysis of the development context of NFTs mentioned above, we can see that NFTs have evolved from being mere collectibles at the beginning to having more functionalities later on, transitioning from artworks to tools. Currently, the main application scenario of NFTs as tools is in gaming items. We do not deny the value of NFTs as collectibles and firmly believe that the first influential NFT crypto artworks will continue to hold high value. However, artworks are still relatively distant for the average person, and the premium brought by scarcity is somewhat fragile. NFTs need more scenarios and to be endowed with more functionalities. Although it may be too early to discuss the application of NFTs in the metaverse, the potential of NFTs as tools in gaming and DeFi deserves further exploration. Additionally, the functionalities of NFTs in areas such as tickets and identity also need to be developed.
People participate in NFTs to pursue their scarcity and originality. Taking the issuance of Mloot as an example, after Loot founder Dom announced Loot on August 27, the initial 8,000 Loot NFTs were quickly claimed in a short time. These 8,000 initial Loot represent their "scarcity" and "originality", and the privileges of various benefits and derivatives will be held by the users of these 8,000 Loot, which may limit the subsequent gameplay and application scenarios of Loot, including games and the Metaverse, and will also reduce the enthusiasm of later participants. Therefore, a week after announcing Loot, Dom launched Mloot, starting from number 8001, with an annual supply of about 250,000. After Mloot began minting, the floor price of Loot experienced a brief decline of about one day before rising again. Thus, we can see that the issuance of NFTs does not dilute the value of the original NFTs; rather, it makes the community recognize the scarcity of the original NFTs. Although other Loot imitations and derivatives experienced explosive growth after Loot's launch, the community's consensus is gradually decreasing, and the community basically only recognizes Loot's originality and value.
Since the explosion of NFTs, we have seen many large enterprises in traditional fields begin to embrace NFTs, using them for marketing and promotion, which is undoubtedly a big trend. The direct benefit of these large enterprises entering the NFT space is that they bring traffic and resources from traditional sectors. In the future, we look forward to more traditional enterprises embracing NFTs, as well as more NFT assets entering traditional fields, and NFTs will continue to move towards mainstream acceptance.
Cryptopunks and Bored Apes are primarily operated by project teams or artists who directly deliver their creations to the community, and by managing and expanding the community, they add value to the original NFT artworks. Subsequently, they also empower the original NFTs by airdropping to NFT holders, adding functionalities, and creating application scenarios. This is a top-down development model, where users passively accept the creators' results. In contrast, Loot and Rarity are essentially community-driven and adopt a bottom-up operation model. The project team only stipulates some basic rules, leaving the subsequent creation and imagination entirely to the community. Each member of the community can contribute their own ideas and determine the direction of the project, showcasing the trend of decentralization in NFTs.
The explosion of Dogecoin at the beginning of 2021 made people begin to realize that the connotation of crypto assets is not just given by the founders or their complex functions; the cultural foundation and strong community consensus can give assets more vitality. This year's popular "JPEG" profile picture social networking can be said to be a product of culture and community in the NFT track, possessing strong social attributes and representing the prevalence of "Club consciousness" in the crypto world. Moreover, this club is exclusive, often only allowing club members to enjoy community airdrops or other benefits. When you ask some Bored Ape holders why they chose to buy in the first place, they will respond that owning an ape profile picture allows access to the ape holder community group and the ability to privately message other users with ape profile pictures. Therefore, while people are still questioning "What is the use of these JPEGs?", we do not deny the factor of economic benefits, but "showing off" and "identity" may be a better answer.
The current minting method for NFTs is mainly "first come, first served", with no quantity limit and no upper cap, ending when sold out, after which players cannot continue to participate. In this model, whales and technically skilled "scientists" have a significant advantage compared to retail investors, as technically savvy players can read the smart contracts to specifically mint the rarest NFTs in a series. Although most users mint randomly, once the rarest NFT is minted in advance, the sales of other retail investors' NFTs in the same series on the secondary market may be quite bleak, making NFT minting not truly fair.
Generative art or algorithmic art is an important component of the current NFT craze. Although the art creation dominated by computer code is composed of different vector random combinations, the executed instruction program is based on human presetting, meaning that the randomness of generative art contains determinism, and its final artistic form can be estimated. Therefore, some criticize this model as contradicting the subjectivity of art, lacking value, creativity, and traces of creation, and it is not difficult to replicate. The development of algorithmic art may tend to be homogenous. However, homogeneity.