The NFT space
Today we are living through the 4th big wave of the online world, that is at the center of the WEB 3.0. This wave is the creation of property rights, and ownership through different crypto assets. The vehicle: NFTs
By José Ignacio Blavi Aros
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The NFT Play
Most have related NFTs with the art world by online pieces, and criticize its simplicity vs value, pointing out is just a fad, because the growth it has had resembles as the one of pyramid scheme, where the techniques of “growth in value” of a given asset are set by the delta we leave as profit for the next holder in the interexchange of property of that asset. That extreme speculation on pricing, gives an inflated/overvalued standard in this whole crypto asset class, but is good to understand that the same happens with emerging artist that are promoted by centralized distributors around the world, but in a lower level, because in the crypto environment, the barriers of entry as a player in the game are lower, and that atomization of the parties is being feed, at this stage, by quick trading and profiting, and we see personalities in youtube and Hollywood using their following to create this NFT assets to sell them to their community, similarly to what the same type of personalities did in the .com building sites they backed with their names, not serving any higher purpose of what a regular blog does today. So, is important to understand my “modo”: lets work for the long term. Meaning we need to look for artists with a good following, that are vocal and present constantly online, and understand the “process of art creation”, as the finished art piece will always be subjective to be liked, but its creation and transformation is what makes a banana ducked taped to a wall, or a simple graffiti in a public space, really valuable. But, thats all what we see at a simple glance, and an NFT is way much more than that: Welcome to the most important step into the realization of a real world in the clouds: NFTs, the owning of online property, online. (This could be the name of our next book, haha) 
The forth wave of integrating a real world in the online world: Internet vs Real World
First wave: From the beginnings of societies, people have gathered around a center: a place that turned gradually into their “town square”, and at the beginnings of the internet, we found people doing the same builing sites to connect and share opinions. From to blogs and big social network platforms. Second wave: Those same people created enchange places, where people would travel to exchange whatever they produced or recollect, and people in the internet have done the same with big market places. Third wave: And also created places where to have fun, districts addressed full on to entertainment. What we have created online with Netflix and the gaming industry. Forth wave: But until now, the internet have not been ready to develop a huge component that pushes all in the real world, and is personal property and ownership 
Have you ever been threatened by facebook instagram or an equivalent to limit the access of/to your account because of your behavior, posting photos that don’t comply with their norm, even threatening people with deleting their whole work/memories/profiles from their servers?
Do you remember of windows e-book reader closing down, deleting all books purchased by users from their devises? Most of our interactions, and creation of our extended personalities online are based on a model of licenses, where we dont own anything of what we “are” online. But this have come to an end, with the creation of actionable ownership through NFTs. To own something seems very clear and simple, but is and has been a deep matter of law (coding) over centuries, across cultures, how do you own it when you are using any sort of derivatives over that property in a market? That door has been opened for organizations integrating blockchain tech, and its first space embracing it properly will be gaming, where we are buying things beyond its use in a specific game, but even if that game closes/ends I can take it to another one, thanks to what is currently being developed around interoperability systems, and protocols (laws). 
The future of NFTs and property rights
We are exiting a moment in time, where our online presence was a “license” to interact with the content we create and use in different networks/platforms, to a model much like the real world, were we can claim different sorts of property rights over the things we create, interact, and purchase online. There is the emblematic case of a person who bought 2 million dollars in gaming assets in a specific game, to realize after a law suit, that he didnt owned any of what he purchased. With NFTs and what companies like Polygon are doing around interoperability of blockchains, we are able today to purchase online assets that truly belong to ourselves, and we can take them with us to whichever platform, game, or environment we want to throughout the online world, and even beyond that, as there are some of those properties that are linked with assets and/or benefits one can have in the real world. But this raises a few core questions: what is property; what it means we can own something online; what are its limitations; whats the difference of property having online rights vs the same property having real life benefits and rights; and what is the definition of real? Before we enter in that legal conversation that takes us to the world of philosophy and even metaphysics, lets dive in to the opportunities and early stage we are set for the interexchange of this property rights: NFTs today. As this new environment is being planned, there are players that are leveling the ground for us to play in, is clear that Etherium with its efficiency is a great background, but the fees to make those exchanges make them prohibited for most today, so there have been a few great initiatives like Metis, Polygon, and Solana (among others), that work on lowering the costs of transactions within an Etherium based blockchain, and solving the interoperability issue, that allows us to have property moved around with us, letting us use it and exchange it through different systems and environments. So, the opportunity and challenge we face today, is to identify companies that at its core can tackle this, allowing new players to emerge to use their systems and protocols, to then allow us to truly have full property rights over online crypto assets. |
