The biggest use case of NFTs in my opinion would be in mixed reality. In AR and VR.
then lower layer of software, the hardware is yet to come out in coming next years and that will drive the biggest change in combination to mixed reality and blockchain.
In my opinion, that's the missing part.
- The sort of hardware that everyone can afford to setup physical network independent from local ISPs to create their own global network to compete with the biggest monopolies of internet. I expect even more competition to spun up against SpaceX/Starlink, and would be super interesting if somehow SpaceX actually adapt some sort of new form of blockchain type tech which possibly solves different decentralised tech problems, in both hardware/software networking.
- The other sort of hardware I expect to solve and give big boost would be the convenient and easy to use mixed reality wearables, or maybe implants directly interacting with our brain 🧠. Just too much speculation at the last point. The possibilities are endless and the probabilities of such thing happening now is getting higher as AI + biology medical science is advancing on much larger scale than ever before.
Adding a bit further to my thought, I somewhat fear and speculate that the true decentralisation is actually under threat. Ever since Blockstream took hold of core developers and most of the developers and maintainers of Bitcoin Core either works under Blockstream or are under influence of this single entity.
The threats are that the core is changed to the extremes where it is moving much towards semi-centralised. Which is new normal of centralised as years go by.
Proof of Stake has already proven to show it being centralised as the govt. is able to enforce their will on Ethereum contracts through block generators. This is not limited to Ethereum and is also already supported and developed from the core thought in other different blockchain projects as well. Including the one I eye on like Polkadot.
May be these tech giants developing and hoarding most developer/users/money/marketing/influence network effect are sort of compromising just to get started. But thinking it another way, it may or may not be a Trojan Horse tactic, if played actually right.
The probabilities are actually leaning towards just to be compliant and get a green light to just keep moving ahead. Have even a slight little wiggle room to do something on semi-decentralised tech.
The next phases of blockchain evolution really depends on how much resilient the new young developers and users are, and are actually thoughtful of their rights and goodwill in general.
To be fair, they are much better than existing smarts in the world, and if I speculate further on that, may take another decade or two to get things actually in right direction if thinking and believing in their goodwill to actually be fruitful in right true decentralised direction of digital form of value transfer.
a lot of mixed thoughts go into it, like psychology, geopolitics, science, past-present experiences, general behaviour etc.
I don't and can't provide numbers, as I haven't been that much numbers guy before. Just take it with a grain of salt.