My Journey Down the NFT Rabbit Hole!!

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Written by

Crypto Enthusiast

2 years ago

In community: Crypto Mindset(9c1c)

Topics: NFTs, WAX, Crypto, Blockchain, Rewards

Most people in the crypto space never took NFTs seriously as they always thought it did not have potential value comparable to main currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and other altcoins gaining momentum during this bull run.

The exponential rise in NFT based projects during the past months has witnessed artists, investors and corporates getting involved actively with NFTs which is further fueling the boom.

Like the majority I had also ignored NFTs for a long period and through this post I will be sharing what made me change my mind and why I strongly feel that NFTs are going to be the next big thing in crypto.

Is NFT a New Phenomenon?

Most people think that NFTs came into existence just a few months back during the end of 2020. This is because a vast majority got aware about NFTs in that period when there a huge spike in NFT valuations and mainstream artists, musicians, sport stars and celebrities started backing and launching NFTs. When people saw NFTs selling for millions then it was flashing on all forms of mainstream media and nobody could ignore it.

While NFTs gained popularity very recently they have been in existence since 2017. The most popular NFT project back then was Crypto Kitties launched by Dapper Labs which saw adoption by a large number of people due to the visual appeal of those cute kitties. This rush to grab NFTs clogged the whole Ethereum blockchain and was the first time people realized there were going to be serious scalability issues in Ethereum but that is probably a topic for another discussion.

Over the next years several NFT based games were launched but they received mixed response as the game play was very limited and the focus was around collecting as many cards possible preferably of higher rarity.

What Caused this Resurgence in NFTs?

The majority of NFT projects in 2018-2019 were basically simple card based games and to put it mildly they were quite dull and boring. After all how many times can you look at your kitties NFTs. The gameplay was just a bsic card comparison of who held a higher rating card won and this was intended to drive people to buy more higher rating cards which will in-turn create more revenue for the projects.

These initial games like Crypto Kitties were very limited in functionality but they laid the path for future games to come which realized the potential NFT games had. This was realized well by Axie Infinity which introduced the Play to Earn concept where active players earned decent rewards. It was growing great until rising ETH prices put a spanner in their engine. This ETH villainy will be a regular occurrence in this story I feel.

However during the second half of 2020 NFT expanded it’s horizon beyond the gaming scope and people from different industries like art, music, movies started joining the wagon.

This endorsement by celebrities helped NFTs to grow from a hobby of a niche group of nerds to receive adoption by millions who were following the influencers on twitter, Instagram etc.

Now NFTs can mean GIFs, short videos, animations, vector images, just photos, twitter posts, basically anything. This has created huge potential for NFT market which was earlier restricted to card based games.

People lost their mind when this NFT collage was sold by Beeple for $ 69 million.

Who Stands to Gain the Maximum from this NFT Boom?

The NFT scene is going to totally revolutionize the art industry. I think art has always been a field where the majority struggle to make ends meet and a very limited lucky minority makes the millions. You need to have right connections with the art galleries to get the right visibility for your art else it would be lost in oblivion.

NFT markets have taken out this limitation as now even the smallest and budding artists have access to open markets to showcase their masterpieces to potential buyers across the world.

Earlier an artists’ work was highly valuated by the time he was long dead, but now thanks to NFTs artists can enjoy the rewards from their art very quickly without having to die first.

Am I Bullish for NFT Games?

The next generation NFT games in the pipeline are something I am really bullish about. If you look at the design being planned for Project Nebula, Doctor Who, MIST to name a few you can see how they are taking the gameplay to a totally different league from what was started by Crypto Kitties.

I think by June-July this year NFT based games would have moved to a level close to mass adoption, and the revenues generated by these games have a chance of competing with the top crypto projects.

How to Start your NFT Journey?

If you are into gaming then you should start exploring about all the new NFT based games which are expected to be launched soon. Most of them have a small entry deposit or minimum purchase to start in the range of $10 or so. You can also check out the existing NFT games that are running like Splinterlands and Upland. They are very basic and not in the league of the games in the pipeline but they will help you get a feel of how to navigate through NFT games.

Another key aspect is to follow small and big NFT artists/ projects on Twitter. They regularly hold giveaways to promote new project or to celebrate a milestone like a big sale or subscriber base growth. This is a nice way to learn how to handle and store your NFTs and track how their value rises or dips in the market. Creating an account on AtomicHub running on WAX is a pre-requisite for that.

Here I would like to give a big shout-out to my friend Paul (@PVMihalache) who opened my eyes to the beautiful world of NFT artists. I would have never believed that you can earn NFTs worth over $250 within a few days through the regular giveaways.

What is the Next Step in my NFT Journey?

I have got really inspired by all the amazing pieces of creativity I have seen over the last couple of days and it has motivated to create my own NFT.

It is not going to be an easy task as it involves a lot of hard work to come up with ideas and design the drafts and also technical know how about transferring them to a computer and do the digital editing.

While having my morning coffee today I made my first draft and am now going to edit it digitally on my laptop.

I will probably do a separate post when this baby is ready on AtomicHub.