To say we are witnessing the start of an entirely new world is an understatement. For the first time in human history, we are seeing a full-blown economy form that exists outside the physical world. It has no government or major corporation involvement. At this point, it is a bunch of developers who are putting out products that are attracting users.
The virtual economy is growing at a rapid rate. According to an article that appeared in Decrypt, the Non-Funguble Token (NFT) market hit $100 million. Some are expecting the virtual economy to expand to $100 billion over the next decade.
NFTs underpin the entire virtual economy. They provide a proof of ownership which allows digital assets to be created and held by individuals. While that was always the case, NFTs enable an asset to exist outside a centralized platform such as a game. Thus, they can be held, sold, or traded.
The establishment of ownership is also helping along a few other areas that are seeing rising use cases. To start, "digital real estate" is becoming a viable option with the success of projects such as Decentraland. Here is where individuals buy land, the same way they do in person. However, unlike in the physical world, this land cannot be seen or touched. It can be used to create virtual businesses though, which is what many projects are looking to morph into.
Another area that is seeing benefit from the use of NFTs is collectibles. Whether they are physical or not, they both recognize the benefit of having provable ownership. The challenge with collectibles is the fact that even if the worth is there, market liquidity is a problem. This means that it is often tough to sell an item for the true value.
Collectibles accounted for more than $37 million of the total in NFT sales.
Coming up the rear is an idea that could be starting to take off. NFTs that are associated with art accounted for just $1.7 million. This is a market, however, that holds incredible promise.
The art world is dominated by galleries. Individual artists are often screwed when it comes to putting out their work and getting full compensation for it. If one is not supported by the galleries, exposure is limited.
Blockchain can help these individuals by offering a means where their work can be directly sold to interested parties. As the platforms get established, we should see a market develop around these works. Artists who gain popularity will see the values of their works grow, enabling them to realize better gains from their efforts.
Like most of the established system, art galleries are really just rent seekers. Their goal is to bring artist and enthusiast together. The drawback is that, for this service, a percentage is taken in the process.
There is a NFT art market forming on Ethereum. Not to be outdone, we see another one being established on Hive.
Here is an interview that was conducted by 
Gaming obviously figures to be a huge winner when it comes to NFTs. We are already seeing a number of games across the space incorporating NFTs into their system. This will continue at an appreciating rate in the future. There will come a time when gamers will turn that backs on games that are not tied to blockchain. Why should someone spend time and money on acquiring in game assets that are essentially worthless outside that particular game?
Of course, the real boom to the virtual economy will be the incorporating of physical assets. Real estate is a market that is non-liquid. The ability to tie in properties through the use of tokens, including NFTs, is going to really kickstart things. We already saw a few projects around the world where this was done.
Some believe the NFT market can be worth trillions of dollars. If real estate shifts in this direction, there is no doubt that will be the case. The global real estate is estimated to be worth around $225 trillion.
There was a time when the acquisition and trading of stock was a rather manual activity requiring human interaction and a lot of paper. Today, the market has exploded, in part, due to the fact that people can easily trade online. Liquidity and access are two areas that cause markets to experience exponential growth.
Will some of the areas detailed here see the same thing? It is quite possible. Ownership has always been a pathway to wealth. NFTs are giving average individuals the ability to own pieces of, well, just about anything. Over the next few years, we will see more things being tokenized. When this happens, the opportunities for individuals grow.
We all are being offered the chance to be involved in what will be trillions of dollars worth of digital assets. The virtual economy is going to dwarf what we presently are accustomed to.
To read the full Decrypt article:
https://decrypt.co/34364/nft-token-sales-hit-100-million-as-virtual-economy-booms
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