Opinion: Increased Metaverse NFT Adoption Will Drive NFT’s Next Growth Cycle

Metaverse and blue-chip non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the driving force behind the dramatic growth of the NFT market. Items such as Bored Apes, Crypto Punks, Azuki, Clone X, and Doodles have steadily attracted collector interest over the past year. Therefore, these NFT projects have helped the NFT market achieve a growth rate of more than 20,000% and sales of approximately $17 billion.

For an industry that once commanded only a small fraction of the attention in the cryptocurrency/blockchain world, it's clear that despite early criticism that NFTs are short-lived, they're here to stay. However, given the recent downturn in the NFT market, investors and collectors alike are looking for new areas where they can take advantage of innovative applications of NFT technology in different use cases.

On the other hand, innovators have come up with creative new ways to apply NFTs to various industries. These new applications have increased the utility of NFTs, and I predict they will drive the next phase of NFT adoption.

NFT market

In the NFT world, one particular niche that is attracting more and more interest is Metaverse NFTs. According to a report jointly released by NonFungible.com and L'Atelier BNP Paribas, Metaverse NFT accounts for about 3% of the global NFT market value, reaching an astonishing $513 million.

As more and more companies establish their brands in the Metaverse, the value of Metaverse NFTs will grow exponentially. Below are a few areas that will benefit from increased adoption of NFTs in the Metaverse.

Virtual Real Estate: Margaret Mitchel once said, "Land is the only thing in the world worthwhile, because it's the only thing in the world that lasts forever, and it's the only thing worth working for, for Struggle, something to die for.” Thanks to blockchain, digital land can evoke the same emotion and utility as physical land.

For example, blockchain firm PARSIQ has created a platform where Metaverse landowners can earn rental income on their digital assets. The protocol mimics the behavior of physical land through a series of smart contracts to ensure the obligations of landowners and lessees are negotiated, managed and enforced.

Virtual event: A few months ago, famed West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg announced that he would be hosting an exclusive concert in The Sandbox's metaverse. The event uses NFT to give concert audiences a high-quality experience inside and outside the Metaverse.

Subsequently, some brands began to explore how to use advanced technology to re-imagine the boundaries of virtual worlds across multiple platforms.

These companies believe that by hosting events that fuse music, art and fashion in a corporate or convention setting, they can offer fans a unique experience that keeps them in their ecosystem longer and extends customer lifetime value.

Financial services: U.S. annual inflation rose to 8.5% in March 2022, the highest rate since 1981, according to Trading Economics.

As investors feel the pressure from all sides, their hunger for assets that can generate returns above inflation increases. Protocols that provide NFT-powered decentralized financial services in the Metaverse provide investors with access to passive returns and other incentives.

Staking and yield farming are already popular methods of earning passive income in the DeFi space, but they are relatively new to the Metaverse. However, when they become widely adopted, they present a huge opportunity for early backers of Metaverse projects to earn life-changing income.

At a time when the market is down, it is exciting to explore these emerging use cases. Once the market returns to prosperity, the early adopters will already be ahead and will most likely move on to the next unexplored frontier.

Cointelegraph Chinese is a blockchain news information platform, and the information provided only represents the author's personal opinion, has nothing to do with the position of the Cointelegraph Chinese platform, and does not constitute any investment and financial advice. Readers are requested to establish correct currency concepts and investment concepts, and earnestly raise risk awareness.