- As the crypto winter continues amidst a major economic downturn, one popular narrative in the media is that NFTs are dead. Of course, NFT floor prices and sales volume are down, especially for pfp collections.
- But the financial markets are all down, with midsized banks going belly up. The banking contagion started after the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates to curb inflation–something completely unrelated to NFTs or cryptocurrency. To single out NFTs as being down misses the forest for the trees.
- If anyone does any research, the adoption of NFTs by businesses just keeps growing.
- To name a few NFT developments just this year:
- Sports Illustrated announced NFT ticketing.
- Ticketmaster announced NFT ticketing.
- Flybondi, an Argentine airline, is selling its tickets through NFTs.
- Yuga Labs continues to build its cutting-edge gaming metaverse the Otherside–yes, the metaverse is not dead either–and just added Mike Seaver, formerly of Epic Games and EA, as its CTO. He joins CEO Daniel Alegre, formerly Activision President, the company responsible for Fortnite and League of Legends.
- Sotheby’s launched its Metaverse marketplace for digital artwork NFTs, and continued to sell NFT artworks.
- Pharrell Williams announced the Doodles NFT digital wearables from Adidas, Human Made, Billionaire Boys Club, and Idea Cream, as well as the Doodles’ Stoodio, a platform for Doodles owners.
- Nike announced its “Our Force 1” collection based on its iconic Air Force 1 sneaker.
- Adidas launched a collection for its Indigo Herz Pack for its “Into the Metaverse” project.
- Puma is partnering with 10KTFshop for its Slipstream sneaker NFTs.
- Ralph Lauren invites 2,7000 Poolsuite NFT holders to a party in Miami, with gift of commemorative Ralph Lauren NFTs. According to Blockworks, “Holders of Poolsuite’s Grand Leisure collection will also be able to update their ‘Leisurist’ avatars using Ralph Lauren-inspired digital looks based on the retailer’s recent runway show in Los Angeles.”
- Mattel launched its own NFT marketplace where you can buy NFTs for Hot Wheels cars, Cryptoys, and Boss Beauties x Barbie.
- Starbucks continues its successful Odyssey loyalty program with NFTs.
- Pace Gallery held a solo exhibition for artist Tyler Hobbs, creator of Fidenza series.
- MoMA extended the massively popular exhibition of the AI artwork Unsupervised by Refik Anadol, which includes an NFT collection for sale. Since he started creating NFTs, Anadol has sold $30 million worth.
- Plus, Amazon is rumored to be launching an NFT marketplace this month.
- Bottom line: open your eyes and see for yourself how NFTs are being integrated by businesses. We’re still early.