NFTs are a great piece of technological progress that goes way beyond digital art and collectibles. In this article, I'll talk about some other use cases for them.
When people think of NFTs, what immediately comes to the minds of most is some sort of digital art or collectibles such as CryptoPunks, Bored Ape
I don't have any issues with NFTs being used for that but what is a bit of a problem for me is that many people don't even know that there is much more to the technology than simply using it to create fancy and expensive jpeg images on the internet.
I'm not an expert, but I did some research on other possible use cases for NFTs and the reality is that there are plenty. Let's see some of them.
NFTs in gaming
Tanks to the thriving play-to-earn scenario we have going on Hive, this is obvious to the people in our community, but it's not that obvious to the so-called "normies". Many blockchain games have NFT as core assets of their tokenomics.
Games like Splinterlands, Rising Star and many others leverage the power of NFT technology to create value for their players. The NFTs in those games are more than just image files as they are actually required for the gameplay, making them valuable assets for players and investors alike.
NFTs in education
I recently wrote an article about Tokenized degrees, showcasing how educational institutions such as schools and universities can use NFTs to replace the current academic certificates.
"NFT degrees" serve the same purpose as the traditional ones, with the advantage of being much more resistant to forgery and other data manipulation. Since they exist on a public blockchain, anyone can easily verify if a person actually holds the title they claim to have.
NFTs in the health industry
I must admit I don't know much about how data in the health industry works, but I found out about a promising use case for NFTs in the health industry. Those DNA companies hold a lot of immutable data about their clients, and apparently, they can sell that to other companies after some time. With NFTs and smart contracts, not only would it be possible to make it. Hence, these companies have to pay their clients if they wish to sell their data to other companies and also, it would be possible for someone to track all the transactions involving the NFT containing their data.
NFTs for voting
In the history of elections worldwide, more than one presidential candidate accused their opponents of election fraud, which is not likely to end soon. The Brazilian defence minister even implied that there would be the 2022 election would not take place unless printed ballots were used.
The good news is that NFTs could solve that too. Thanks to its immutable nature, the identity of electors could be verified and recorded in the blockchain for posteriority, potentially minimizing frauds in the system. It might sound far-fetched, but at least one company is already doing it. I don't really know how it works, and I might do an in-depth article about it later but for now, feel free to check iVote.ph if you want to know more.
NFTs in the legal system
This is something that I look forward to. I don't know how does the legal system work in other countries, but here in Brazil, there is something I really hate, which is document authentication.
Here, there are many kinds of contracts, such as house rentals, for example, that requires you to authenticate your signature and personal documents, which means a lot of time spent on queues and a lot of money spent just to get a stamp on a piece of paper that supposedly proves its authenticity.
It's needless to say that this process is vulnerable to all kinds of fraud and a massive pain in the ass for citizens who have to go through it. Again, NFTs can do the same thing, except it would be much safer, much faster and cost a fraction of the money.
Final thoughts
NFTs became very famous for their ability to be used in digital art or collectibles, but the underlying technology enables them to be used in many more ways.
I believe that art and collectibles NFTs will continue to exist, but it's time we start looking beyond that as society has a lot to win with the introduction of NFTs in different industries.