How NFTs or non-fungible tokens are creating mass adoption of blockchain

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'Non-fungible token' or NFT is a unique asset. A NFT is like Vincent van Gogh's 'The Starry Night'. There is only one such painting. Two tokens can't be same. This is unlike traditional fungible cryptocurrency like bitcoin or ether. My 1 BTC is interchangeable with your 1 BTC. But non-fungible tokens are not mutually interchangeable because of unique properties. Now each NFT stores some metadata in the related blockchain to make itself unique.

Cryptokitties – The first popular NFT

First popular NFTs were brought by ethereum based game Cryptokittes although several unpopular attempts were made earlier. CryptoKitties is a blockchain game that allows players to collect, breed, buy and sell virtual cats. The game became so popular in 2017 that it almost clogged ethereum network due to immense number of transactions created from the game. Each Cryptokitty is unique and owned by the owner. Cryptokitties game used ERC721 token standard and not the popular ERC20. ERC721 has ability to track ownership and movement of individual tokens. Each ERC721 token represented a unique digital cat.

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Use of NFTs

• Creating verifiable ownership of digital asset
• Possibility of interoperability of assets across multiple games
• In game assets controlled solely by user instead of developer
• Potential use in digital art
• Potential use in linking physical assets to the NFTs for trustless asset transfer

Value of NFT

A NFT is a tradable asset. Like any other asset, the value is market determined. In 2018, one art piece with a cryptokitty inside, was sold for $140,000 in auction. OpenSea, the largest marketplace for crypto collectibles or NFTs, has over 4 million assets, 135+ dapps, and 4,000 ETH in monthly volume.

Image Source – Top trading NFTs

Recent happenings with NFTs

NFTs in Steem blockchain
NFTs are supported in Steem blockchain now. Steem Engine is the place where you can mint NFTs with zero fees. All NFTs are tradable.

Image Source – Steem Engine website

Splinterlands is a digital collectible multiplayer card game built in Steem blockchain. Each collectible card is a uniquely owned by a particular owner. Earlier Steem did not support custom-built smart contracts like Ethereum, Tron or EOS; so Steem blockchain was used to record everything of the game only. Now the game will get native support for NFTs in Steem blockchain.

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Binance launches NFTs
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, officially revealed its NFT collectibles in December, 2019. The NFTs were minted by Enjin (ENJ) team using their token standard. Binance NFTs are selling in OpenSea in the range of 0.1 to 0.6 ETH.

Image Source - Binance’s sixth holiday NFT called ‘EXCHANGE THE WORLD 2019’

Digital art NFT marketplace SuperRare doing roaring business
Blockchain-based art seems to be finding popularity heavily. SuperRare, a NFT marketplace for digital art, did record business in December, 2019. Currently also it is top traded in NFT market as per nonfungible website.

Image Source – SuperRare website

Conclusion

The fungible cryptocurrencies are only one side of blockchain technology. Non-fungible tokens have great potential to make blockchain and cryptocurrency popular. As NFTs can tokenize physical assets, institutional investors are seeing excellent commercial opportunity in this. NFTs can surely bring blockchain mass adoption fast in the whole world with huge no of use cases. Definitely it is an innovative medium to make blockchain and cryptocurrency mainstream in near future.