“The Future of Money is Digital Currency” – Bill Gates
As cryptocurrency steadily gains ground around the world, one of these is non-fungible tokens, commonly called NFTs. NFTs are essentially unique digital representations of various pieces of art, content, and collectibles. Anything digital, from art to music to fashion can be turned into a unique NFT with its ownership being recorded on a digital ledger that can be traded across block chains. In simple words, “non-fungible” more or less means that it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else. NFTs are a type of asset that most people hadn’t heard of just a few months ago. This is a sustainable investment trend which became huge in the last few years. Although prevalent since around the 2010s, the recent boom in the crypto economy, with many cryptocurrencies reaching record highs, NFTs are also becoming mainstream and attracting investors and traders like never before. Worried about security? Today in the world of art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) give artists the option of cryptographically securing their digital assets and auctioning them off in 24-hour online marketplaces which have more liquidity than traditional art markets.
How is the world of fashion and luxury responding to NFT’s?
NFTs are the next evolution of digital fashion skins, which have already been embraced by luxury & fashion brands. They claim that NFTs’ scarcity and ability to accrue value can bring digital fashion closer to real fashion. “NFTs and interest in digital artwork are completely to the luxury fashion industry’s advantage,” said digital designer Nicole Zisman. “Unlike the high-street and fast-fashion sectors, the major change would be in the medium of ownership of luxury fashion that customers are interested in, not whether the interest in ownership is there in the first place.” Interestingly, back in 2019 Nike released a series of “crypto-kicks” with an NFT as a way to combat counterfeits, but it drew limited attention as the serious NFT hype had not yet taken off. Take, for example, Hermès. The French luxury goods manufacturer has used the scarcity of its most iconic bags, the Birkin and the Kelly, as a marketing tool. It has also used the brand’s desirability to dictate prices for its bags because, in the luxury world, leather bags don’t all hold the same value. Gucci has started issuing one-of-a-kind digital sneakers as NFTs. The very high-end-niche Krigler perfume is releasing NFTs. Eric Pfrunder, formerly Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand man at Chanel, just went on the board of Lukso, an NFT-blockchain company set up to service the luxury industry.
Is NFT a FAD then?
The history of non-fungibles is much longer than most people realize. The first attempts at NFTs were made in the 2012–2013 Coloured Coin era. Despite the massive growth we have experienced in the past few years, this space is still extremely young. I believe the growth of the NFT ecosystem will accelerate as more people and brands realize the impact that NFTs can have. Developers will continue to create innovative uses and interoperable items will be a complete game- changer. I suspect within five years the NFT space will look radically different than it is today.
Future of NFTs
I think it’s going to grow even more because digital evolution is non-stop. With the advent of the digital age, almost every form of art has been digitized. The fact that now almost everything can be traced in zeros and ones and can be accessed wherever – whenever you want has meant that art reaches billions of people expanding worldwide. With the improvement of technologies, digital artists are now able to recreate virtual environments and incredible visual effects impossible to reproduce in the real world. Images, videos, and music have been fully digitalized delivering stunning virtual experiences. Surely this new way to sell and deliver artistic products is exciting and interesting.
Yet, we are still at the beginning of what could be a revolution in the art and creative field. A lot more is still possible. This is paving a new future in luxury as to how digital goods and content are bought, sold, shared, and distributed.
Mahi Raj
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