ShapeShift, an international, non-custodial cryptocurrency leader, released a new report in their “New Frontiers” series called “Enter the Metaverse: Challenges and Opportunities in NFTs.” Recently, NFTs have received significant attention for the high-dollar sales of digital art and collectibles. However, the underlying, blockchain-enabled capability has potential to disrupt many industries, enable a wide span of transactions of both real-world and digital objects and support more direct transactions at scale between buyers and sellers.
This report reviews the possible applications of NFTs; the roadblocks that could impede their full potential (such as scalability, security and marketplace fragmentation); the innovations required or in the works to address these roadblocks; recent movements in NFT-related standards; and the copyright/intellectual property implications of NFTs.
“NFTs have the potential to transform how people execute real estate transactions and open the door to fractional ownership of properties, as just one example of their potential impact,” said Kent Barton, head of research and development of ShapeShift and author of the report. “There is a lot to unpack with NFTs and work to be done to enable a future where NFTs are at the center of a more seamless, direct transfer of ownership. It’s important to understand what they can possibly mean for the future, and what work remains to get us to that future.”
