Whilst the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market has cooled dramatically in 2021, Australia’s true NFT advocates believe there’s still more room for revolutionising the arts scene and local sports collectible industry. However, the market of NFT face challenges from reducing hype, volatile crypto-currency prices with the impacts of COVID-19 leaving a pervasive lingering sense of uncertainty. NFTs are a non-replicable, unique digital certificate for a digital asset. They are created with a smart contract on a blockchain that are stored on a blockchain-based wallet with a unique address and cannot be divided or replaced but can be resold. NFTs can be completely digital nature or asset-related to real-world items.
At the moment, the NFT environment is characterised with vast uncertainty – cryptocurrency prices have fallen from their all time causing a rapid sell-out from the investors and speculators that inflated the market through early 2021. Furthermore, the government financial support that funded a series of cryptocurrency activity has slowed to a trickle, making speculative traders less likely to punt their money into blockchain commodities. Nonfungible.com, the NFT market database, has shown that the primary art market sales peaked in early February 2021 with almost US$5.58m funnelling to creators before falling down to US$417,000 by July 25.
However, a new cadre of Australian NFT advocates are sourcing investment funds to push for an in-person NFT exhibition, meshing the boundaries between local art industry and NFTs and sell sporting codes on blockchain collectibles. Promise of a future surge of NFT has been kept alive by the rise of a ‘play-to-earn’ video game built on NFT collectibles generating enormous attraction with NFT marketplace Open Sea reaching a recent valuation of US$1.5bn. There are also hopes to usher top leagues and clubs into the NFT market to offer sport codes on blockchain to capture a greater fan experience. The current market for digital assets has a unique appeal that certainly holds a strong promise to flourish into the future.
