One of the biggest auction houses in the world, Sotheby’s is best known for its NFT auctions. They have worked with leading artists to launch NFTs, with one of the most memorable sales being a digital art piece by Beeple, an anonymous digital artist for $68 million. The uniqueness of NFTs, which exist as tokenized versions of assets, secured by the blockchain, have made them popular with art buyers.
The Year of NFTs; 2021
As 2021 comes to a close, it can be declared as THE year of NFTs. Various stars have released their own NFTs, which they have sold to their fans. However, some believe that NFTs may be a fad, which will soon go bust.
One reason for this misconception is that many people believe NFTs can only be used to create digital art. However, that is not the case. NFTs are opening up a whole new revenue stream that could lead to the rise of innovative digital products. Various industries are looking into the use of NFTs to tokenize assets such as music albums, iconic moments, and sports memorabilia. Some of the use cases for NFTs that currently exist are:
Fashion
Luxury brands, such as Gucci and Dolce and Gabbana, are entering the NFT space with limited collections. The use of NFTs helps safeguard the ownership of fashion items, while also ensuring easy verification of authenticity. It is an especially effective solution to counterfeiting.
Patents
Another use case for NFTs is securing patents and intellectual rights. Tokenized certificates that come with legal safeguards help to safeguard the authenticity of a document while helping to add transparency.
Music
In the music industry, NFTs provide proof of ownership of original content while making it easy to authentic music. When it comes to royalties, NFTs also makes it possible to easily track the monetization process.
Real Estate
NFTs have also found a use case in the real estate world, where they can be used to provide provenance on the ownership of a piece of real estate. Besides that, they provide transparency into the transfer of ownership of such an asset.
Collectibles
NFTs are a unique way to guarantee the purchase of unique digital collectibles, which provide absolute certainty on provenance thanks to the security of the blockchain.
Gaming and the Metaverse
Most widely, NFTs are finding use cases in online gaming and metaverse. By using NFTs, players can have the absolute ownership of in-game items, which they can sell on secondary markets.
NFTs and Digital Fashion
Digital fashion is a trend that has been made possible in a huge way by NFTs. A good example of a digital fashion company that is working to bring NFT fashion to the masses is Space Runners. Space Runners is working with leading celebrities and sports icons, such as Kyle Kuzma and Nick Young, to bring NFT collections to the masses. These exciting partnerships will be displayed in Space Runners’ first collection; NBA Champions Sneaker Collection
Users have the opportunity to purchase these unique fashion items that are secured on the Solana blockchain. Space Runners plans to launch digital collections of these items, which users can hold forever, in mid December.
In the future, Space Runners plans to launch a VR environment, where holders of Space Runners’ digital fashion can interact with their apparel. They can share these interactions on social media, which will help to grow the popularity of the platform and the value of the NFTs.
Instead of visiting catwalks in Barcelona, visiting the Space Runners platform can peruse through digital fashion via their computers or mobile devices. In the future, the platform plans to launch a marketplace where people can trade their fashion apparel NFTs with others. They also plan to launch in the metaverse with unique fashion apparel that people can use as skins. This is something that Meta has expressed interest in, in direct response to Space Runners on Twitter!
Holders of ‘Runners’ will also get special privileges, such as special access to merchandise pre-sales by the sports stars. They will also get exclusive entry to sports stars post-game events where they can interact with them.
Space Runners could not achieve its purpose without support from its partners. These include the likes of Ankr, Clover Finance, Divergence Ventures and Bullet Labs.