NFTs are diffusing Crypto Tribalism
When incentives are aligned, new communities flourish
It’s no secret that impassioned communities surround blockchain projects. Investing in cryptocurrency requires both an investment of time and money, and the time required to learn about projects leads to an emotional investment as well. Conviction in a specific cryptocurrency can sometimes lead to huge payouts which foster loyalty.
100,000% gains that happen in the cryptosphere have led to years of infighting on the internet. Cryptocurrency marketing focuses on how a project’s technology will be the first to attract developers that drive mainstream users. Crypto’s “killer app” has been endlessly debated for millions of hours between thousands of currencies, but NFTs may be the first iteration of a truly useful crypto product for consumers.
As mainstream brands use the different options for creating NFTs - NBA on FLOW, Funko on WAX, artists on ETH - we’re seeing a new kind of cryptocurrency investor that rises above the infighting - “NFT collector”. NFT collectors must learn to navigate a plethora of marketplaces, wallets, dApps, and different user interfaces that have all achieved different levels of functionality and all have their own pros and cons.
In order to help each other navigate all this, a community of these collectors has sprung alive over the last 4 years. The NFT collector community is not just on Ethereum, or Wax. It’s on Twitter, Telegram, and Discord. Collectors discuss the best options to get different currencies or invites to new marketplaces. The fights about who has the best technology aren’t as important when people are chasing the underlying assets to buy the things they want on these marketplaces. Healthier communities are formed as the financial objectives are more easily aligned, and alliances are more easily formed when everyone can benefit from clear collaboration.
For anyone attempting to catch the wave of this new NFT paradigm, it is best to be blockchain agnostic. Take our very own CryptoFinney project, for example. We thought it best to acknowledge our roots in the EOS community, while also facing the reality that most users have been introduced to AtomicHub through WAX. The best collectors of Finneys will be those that can leverage both the EOS and WAX sides of our project.
OG Ethereum NFT collectors have begun to discover this phenomenon, as Pranksy and Beanie.eth are now both major collectors on WAX.
With the options for digital collectors expanding daily, it will be interesting to see how marketplaces like AtomicHub integrate “swap” mechanisms for those cases where one user is selling in WAX, but another is purchasing in EOS. The proficient collector currently needs to use different currencies, wallets, and marketplaces in order to maximize their collecting potential.
I foresee that the first marketplace that utilizes a “globally” connected blockchain or behind-the-scenes liquid swap mechanism to list art and collectibles from across all the different marketplaces will have a clear road to success. For now, the pros and cons of each blockchain and marketplace remain in constant flux, while the communities surrounding them grow stronger than ever.
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Totally. NFT tech is already a movement. It dissuades group agendas; instead, nurturing creativity and appreciation. This new abundance of human spirit feeds a young market, demonstrates its power (e.g. NFTs for patents), and shines a very bright light on errred ways of old (or just maybe yesterday :)
Great piece, really enjoyed reading this, welcome to the Cryptowriter team 🥳