How NFT Finance Accelerates NFT Mass Adoption
Stephen Young, Founder & CEO, NFTfi, an NFT collateralized loan marketplace.
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There is so much hype around Art and Collectibles (A&C) in the NFT space that you would be forgiven for thinking NFTs begin and end there. Certainly, the vast majority - although not all - of NFT projects to date have been concentrated in A&C. Quarterly studies released by NonFungible paint an interesting picture: by volume, A&C accounted for 91% of the market in Q1 of 2021, down to 85% in Q3. This simultaneously shows the dominance of A&C, while also pointing to the expanding presence of other NFT verticals.
As NFT use cases expand and diversify, the market grows (surpassing USD 40bn in 2021, per Chainalysis), and the technology’s benefits are increasingly recognized, two questions, therefore, remain: what is holding NFTs back from mass adoption and how can we get there?
In a recent article for Cryptonews.com on this topic, Kiril Nikolov suggests that the holdup is partly the low levels of global crypto adoption (only an estimated 106 million people hold cryptoassets), but primarily the lack of utility and services that can make NFTs accessible and useful in people’s everyday lives. One of the key services Nikolov mentions is the development of financial tools.
Motivated by the importance of developing this new frontier, this article proposes that such financial tools can be defined and grouped under the term ‘NFT Finance’. In the following sections, I will break down what NFT Finance entails, suggest a framework for understanding existing and future financial products, and demonstrate how it can enhance an incredibly diverse range of global industries. Most importantly, I will argue that NFT Finance is the key to mainstream NFT adoption
Read more on cryptonews.com
