Innovation is key to everything. A stagnate blockchain/business or person simply never grows and is doomed to fail over time. While NFTs have been all the rage there is plenty of room for innovation and progress in this little niche of the crypto world.
NFTs are a sort of "proof of ownership" it works well for all things such as art, collectibles and utility for games and defi it's been around for a while now. It was only this year however that NFTs really came to be and picked up in popularity particularly fueled by art at first and then followed up by the gaming industry.
Yes, there will be a next phase and it's currently looking like it could go a few ways. It's still unclear as to what sector will take off but here are a few currently going on.
NFTs representing of physical items such as real estate, ticket sales and other types of physical collections. This allows for much faster transfer of that asset to show proof of ownership instead of slow paper trail processes which also can be manipulated.
NFTs for loans we are starting to see this take shape more in the DeFi space but it's still greatly in its early phase.
NFTs for degrees, certificates, audio and other such files to show proof of ownership and title to a person.
Ethereum still holds majority stake in this and that's because of the vast amount of attention it gets. In both the developer front as well as the audience front. Building a project on Binance for example will ultimate result in lower project funds compared to one built on Ethereum. It's simply a huge numbers game. However where do we go from here since Ethereum is semi stagnated because of it's fees and throughput.
While Ethereum is growing and updating their systems to combat fees and slow transactions it's a process which is going to take a lot of time. It's this time factor that is holding it back now. In the faced pace digital world we live in now people want changes now and that just doesn't happen with a multi billion dollar network as it needs to be tested like crazy because of the risks.
We are already seeing a shift not away from Ethereum in particular but on to other solutions with still some type of connection or easy way to tap into Ethereum if need be. One of the first ever NFT game type projects crypto kitties is now moving to in house or other platforms such as Flow.
Both of these platforms are also very big players now in the NFT space. With funds and projects being worked on including grants and other features to on board developers and launch new projects we are starting to see these platforms take off in both innovation and growth. While still far from Ethereum type levels these platforms do have the solid ground work that after years of constant pushing and innovation should see them at some new record highs.
These two platforms offer easy lower cost solutions for people new to the space to get involved something that often holds off people from Ethereum. While that's all fine and dandy one thing we need to realize is even though you might have the fastest and lowest cost blockchain (there's lots of time btw) if you don't have the development and marketing behind it no ones going to care.
Of all the blockchains these are two that have stuck out from the pack in terms of both marketing and development. Two very key aspects you should look for when you think of a long term investment.
At first everyone complained about NFTs burning down the world because of the mining power. I simply laugh at this and think to myself that same processing power for someone to get a NFT you just used while playing your video game today and no ones complaining about that! It's a dumb comparison that I laugh at and consider those people ignorant.
The other issue holding back NFTs right now and I agree with is the fact of not real ownership. They are simply dumb receipts. The next evolution is to offer up better use cases, more control of access for "owners" of these assets and so forth. This is an evolution area which is highly being looked into and if landed right could shoot NFTs into multi trillion dollars worth instead of billions.
