The cryptocurrency boom came, arrived with a bang, and is still clinging to relevance. Most have entirely lost interest, but Bitcoin and a few other cryptos are still around. NFTs, however, seem on a downward spiral that will likely result in complete failure. The vast majority aren’t surprised, given that NFTs seemed like a fad from the start. It is, however, still worth taking a closer look at what is another fairly high profile tech flop.
First and foremost, NFTs are apparently tied to blockchain. It isn’t exactly clear why blockchain was needed, given that Steam has had a thriving trading card economy for decades. But then again, it is cool for marketing when tech buzzwords appear related.
The idea is that little bits of data can be seen as unique, including images, videos, and other such things. So, technically, anyone can be the proud owner of a picture of a dog, for example. Thus we have NFTs.
Ridiculous Pricing For Nothing
The question is how much do you think your NFT of a dog is worth? Ten cents? Twelve cents? No, the correct answer is millions. An NFT of the first official tweet was sold for millions, with no one attempting to offer any sort of pricing justification. Of course, when the owner attempted to resell the NFT, asking for $17 million, no one was even remotely interested. Assumptions seemed to have been that if someone was willing to pay millions, others would follow suite and also pay millions. Thus a multi-million dollar industry would be born out of nothing.
These assumptions were not only wrong, they were extremely misguided. Steam trading cards almost exclusively trade for cents, with just a handful being worth a few thousand dollars. That anyone thought NFTs could come out of the gate selling for millions seems like the biggest miscalculation in tech history. Anyone with any sense would far rather claim an online casino welcome bonus, do some gambling, and face far more reasonable odds of getting paid out.
Some Got Rich Quick
That NFTs are fading isn’t surprising, but that doesn’t mean that a select few didn’t get rich while the scramble lasted. Someone was paid millions for the first tweet, and at the peak of trade millions was being thrown around daily. The trick is that those selling NFTs for exorbitant amounts made money, while those stuck with the NFTs are now wondering what to do with them.
It will be near impossible for the sold NFTs to be resold at anything resembling a profit, or perhaps to be resold at all. The economy simply does not exist. More to the point, anyone getting into the market in the first place likely did so due to promises of getting rich.
The key point being that very few actually wanted the NFTs for what they were; little bits of data.
As with the original crypto boom it is all now a matter of waiting for the fad dust to settle. If NFTs exist afterwards is highly doubtful.
