where nft can be used?

NFTs are digital assets that cannot be replicated or substituted due to their unique use of blockchain technology, providing a secure, decentralized record of ownership. Because they cannot be copied or altered, NFTs are often used to track the ownership of property, both physical and digital. But they really got their traction recording the ownership of pieces of digital art, which could be bought and sold on NFT marketplaces.

Since that fateful purchase of Beeple’s digital art, hordes of brands, celebrities and average Joes alike have hopped on the NFT hype-train, transforming it from a fringe hobby to a multi-billion-dollar industry. However, putting that hype aside, NFTs have a lot of other meaningful uses beyond just their novelty. And while it’s important to note that NFTs are certainly not perfect, they are being applied in all kinds of creative ways across a variety of industries, from music to supply chain management.

Want to Learn More? Here’s a Beginner’s Guide to NFT Crypto Art

A growing number of musicians have turned to blockchain technology, and specifically NFTs, as a way to mint and preserve everything from digital music, to album art, to memorabilia.

With the use of NFTs, artists can tokenize their songs and albums, provide royalties to creators and producers, and sell their digital merchandise for an additional source of income if they want. And they’re being used by the likes of John Legend, Grimes and Kings of Leon. In fact, members of Kings of Leon were so enthused by the technology that they turned a never-before-released performance of their song “Time in Disguise” into an NFT, put it on a rocketship, and had it played in space — reportedly making it the first minted NFT tune to go interstellar.

Beyond their inherent cool factor, NFTs are perhaps most appealing to the music industry for financial reasons. For decades, artists have felt cheated by lopsided royalty agreements or the lack of money-making potential on streaming platforms. But NFTs provide a way to cut out the middle person and take home a bigger piece of the pie financially. Josh Katz, the CEO and founder of NFT marketplace YellowHeart, calls this the “90/10 rule.”

“Traditionally, the artist takes home 10 percent of the revenue that they generate and other parties take 90 percent,” Katz told Built In earlier this year. “With NFTs, the artist takes 90 percent and the platform takes 10 percent.”

If you’re one of the millions of people vying for a seat at Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated (and, recently, highly controversial) 2023 Eras Tour, then you’re no stranger to how painful the ticket purchasing process can be.

In general, tickets to popular events tend to get sold out fast, and the rise of ticket bots has made the situation even worse. According to a 2019 report published by Distil Networks, about 39 percent of ticketing traffic consists of these bots, which buy up a bunch of tickets and then resell them on secondary markets for much higher prices. This phenomenon is not only frustrating (and costly) to consumers, but it can also rob event organizers of additional revenue, and lead to the purchase of fraudulent tickets.

NFT ticketing is a possible solution. Tickets in the form of NFTs that exist on a blockchain can act as access passes to any live or virtual event, providing a more secure and convenient alternative to traditional ticketing. Buying an NFT ticket directly from the artist removes the need for third-party sellers, likely reducing scams and scalping due to higher transparency and authenticity verification. Plus, due to the public nature of blockchain technology, event organizers could check transaction histories to prevent fraud.

Beyond these more pragmatic benefits, ticketing an event with NFTs can also potentially help issuers interact with customers in a new way, offering perks like surprise giveaways, token-gated sites and services, and access to exclusive experiences and fan clubs simply by collating data associated with holders of a specific NFT ticket.

Although the infrastructure for NFT ticketing is there, it hasn’t quite taken off yet. But individual artists have begun dabbling in this technology, including pop artist Pip and DJ Steve Aoki. And there’s a growing number of startups working to make it more widely available.

In order to fully understand the concept of virtual real estate, one must first understand the concept of the metaverse — a network of shared, immersive virtual worlds in which people can socialize, create, play games, shop and even work. For now, the idea of one universal metaverse remains speculative. But many tech companies are in the midst of creating it, building experiences like virtual mental health clinics, office spaces and shopping malls.

Virtual real estate is among the most important and lucrative aspects of the metaverse as it exists today, available on virtual worlds like Decentraland, The Sandbox and Roblox. Like in the real world, available land in these virtual worlds is limited, but instead of cash they’re traded with NFTs. Major brands like iHeartMedia and Gucci, as well as celebrities like Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg have staked their own digital grounds. When a person buys a plot of virtual land, the NFT representing the ownership of that parcel is transferred to the crypto wallet of that buyer, at which point they can do everything from open a virtual concert venue to build a house and charge other players rent for staying there.

Some of these virtual worlds also allow users to create, share and monetize their own NFTs in the form of clothes, furniture, gadgets and more. For example, Roblox users can monetize their own creations and sell them to other users for real money. And most of them wind up putting that money back into the platform, spending it on games or other users’ creations, according to Deepak Chandrasekara, a former vice president of product management at Roblox. This creates a “free-market, user-driven economy,” he told Built In earlier this year.

“ not just about taking money out of the ecosystem, it’s also about using the same virtual currency and spending it across the ecosystem,” Chandrasekaran continued. “We actually have to pretty much simulate the entire world.”

Play-to-earn games have gained enormous popularity over the last couple of years, offering real-world economic incentives to the people who play them. By completing tasks, battling other players and progressing through various game levels, players are rewarded with in-game assets like virtual land, avatars, weapons, costumes and other NFTs, which can then be taken out of the game to be traded or sold on marketplaces.

There are tons of blockchain-based games on the market today, and some of the most popular ones include The Sandbox, Splinterlands and Gods Unchained. But perhaps the most well-known and influential title in this space is Axie Infinity, a two-dimensional game consisting of creatures called “axies,” which are essentially NFTs that can be bred with and battled against other axies for a chance to win crypto tokens called “smooth love potions,” or SLPs. At its peak, Axie Infinity players around the world were earning thousands of dollars a month for playing just a few hours a day, and the game became No. 1 in NFT collectibles in 2021, according to DappRadar, despite never being available on popular app stores and the larger game industry’s wariness of the entire space.

But just as quickly as Axie ascended, it ran into major problems, and its popularity has plummeted. So, too, has the entire GameFi market in which these play-to-earn games exist. As recession fears continue to loom large over the entire economy, the once white-hot cryptocurrency space has cooled off significantly, and blockchain games took the hardest hit initially. But GameFi is reportedly expected to be among the first to recover from this downturn, as indicated by recent venture capital funding data collected by popular crypto-focused news site The Block.

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The food and beverage industry has been building what is known commonly as the “foodverse,” a subset of the metaverse in which recipes, ingredients and entire dishes can be bought and sold as NFTs. Major food chains like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Panera Bread and Chipotle have already begun making strides in this space, hoping to seize on both its branding and money-making opportunities.

NFTs can also function as a sort of access pass to exclusive dining experiences and offerings in the real world. For example, Flyfish Club is an NFT membership card that permits unlimited access to a 10,000 square-foot location in New York City that consists of a cocktail lounge, restaurant, and outdoor space, as well as the various culinary, cultural and social events hosted there. And then there’s the Crypto Baristas NFT, which offers discounts for its exclusive coffee brand and tickets to the annual New York Coffee Festival.

The global supply chain has seen quite a bit of technological innovation over the last several years, including adoption of blockchain technology in order to improve tracking and transparency, make payments more efficient, promote more ethical and sustainable sourcing methods, and much more. The implementation of NFTs, specifically, can make it easier to verify and track items as they go along the supply chain, from raw materials to finished products.

The average product moves through many different touchpoints on its journey to a consumer. And an NFT can be used as a sort of digital twin along this journey, where it can be paired with a specific product as a means of recording and verifying each touchpoint. Ownership of that NFT can then be transferred as the product changes hands along the supply chain until it winds up with the purchaser, enabling everyone from manufacturers to retailers to consumers alike to better understand and refine the product journey.

Plus, NFTs can provide easy visibility into not just where an item is, but all the data associated with it (what it’s made of, how it should be handled, who is buying it, and so on). Their ability to efficiently store and share this data make NFTs a good resource for providing verifiable insights that can then be used to inform decision-making in the future.

Like many assets, NFTs can be used as collateral, meaning a person can exchange an NFT they own for a decentralized finance loan.

Here’s how it works: First, the lender and borrower need to agree on the given asset’s value, the length of time the borrower has to pay back the loan, and the amount of interest to be repaid on top of the original loan amount. Once that happens, the NFT is locked into a smart contract, or a self-executing program stored in a blockchain that only runs when certain predetermined conditions are met, for a pre-specified amount of time or until the borrowed amount (plus interest) is repaid in full.

While the NFT is in this contract, the technical owner of the asset is the smart contract itself, which remains the sole owner until the set terms of the contract have ended or been satisfied. No one (including the smart contract escrow) has access to the actual NFT. But if the borrower defaults on the loan, the NFT is automatically sent to the lender’s wallet as collateral for the balance of the loan, becoming the new owner of the asset.

Of course, like any financial decision, putting an NFT up as collateral comes with some risk. For one, the NFT market is extremely volatile, which can have a significant impact on how much a given NFT is valued at in the loaning process. And, if the borrower can’t pay back their loan in the time given, they automatically lose their NFT. Since it’s common practice for lenders to lend less money than what a particular asset might be worth, borrowers run the risk of losing money in the long run.

You can’t have a roundup of NFT use cases without adding the most popular use for NFTs of all: as digital assets that can be collected and enjoyed.

Many of the NFTs collected today are regarded as pieces of digital art — the collection of which started as an exclusive activity for the techie and wealthy, but has rapidly gone mainstream thanks to wild success of NFT art collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. Some pieces go for a couple bucks, while others go for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

These days, collecting NFTs as pieces of art is not just a potentially lucrative move, but it also opens up new opportunities for digital artists. NFT marketplaces allow for direct sales between artists and buyers, and tokenization lets the artists earn royalties from future sales. Once purchased, NFTs can be traded like any other asset, made a fixture in a person’s collection or even used as a profile picture on social media and, eventually, the metaverse.

Art isn’t the only kind of NFT that is commonly collected either. NFTs in the form of sports memorabilia like playing cards and limited-edition video clips have also become wildly popular among digital asset collectors. In 2021, consulting firm Deloitte predicted that NFTs for sports media alone would generate more than $2 billion in transactions by the end of this year.

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NFTs in the form of clothing have garnered popularity as not just collectibles, but statement pieces avatars can wear when they socialize with friends, attend a concert or attend a meeting in the virtual world.

Major brands have been hopping on the bandwagon already. Gucci reportedly sold an NFT bag on Roblox for more than $4,000, making it more expensive than the actual bag. Dolce & Gabana sold a nine-piece collection of NFTs last year for a reported $5.6 million, which were each paired with physical clothing items. And earlier this year, fast fashion retailer Forever 21 opened a virtual storefront in Decentraland, where it offered NFT fashion items inspired by pieces available in its physical stores and website.

“Being part of the fashion industry, I see incredible opportunities with NFTs,” Yanie Durocher, the founder of fashion consulting agency POMPOM Creative, wrote in a recent Forbes op-ed. “PR and advertising for fashion designers, artists, creators and influencers will be able to reach a spread level never seen before. A designer’s clothes could be seen worldwide, and not just in a random ad-buy post on social media, but worn by people — potential customers and influencers who purchase the digital skins.”

Non-fungible tokens (NFT) are an emerging technology that has already seen a ton of use cases outside the typical NFT application – which right now is mostly for trading artworks and game characters.

NFTs can be used to represent physical objects, digital content, or even intangible concepts like intellectual property too. It’s crazy to think about it beyond digital content, beyond 2D or 3D images, but there are several actual practical uses for it too…at least soon.

NFTs can be used to ensure that the product you are purchasing is authentic. Since the blockchain can permanently store information about the product, checking for rarity and authenticity will soon be a thing on physical products too. NFTs can also be used to store information about the manufacturing process, ensuring that everything is fair trade.

NFT applications don’t stop at consumer products either. There have already been numerous companies successfully using NFTs for industrial design prototyping purposes.

One problem in the world right now is fake food products like supplements and medicine, NFTs can help solve this by tracking and tracing food products. Imagine just scanning a QR code of a nutritional supplement you bought online and seeing its entire journey – from manufacturing to shipment.

In which case, products that erroneously claim they were made and sourced in a specific country will eventually be exposed, since the track record is transparent.

NFTs and real estate are made for each other. NFTs could be used to transfer land deeds, provide proof of ownership and even keep track of changes in property value over time using timestamped NFTs.

The real estate industry is one of the most NFT-ready sectors. NFTs can be used in real estate to simplify and speed up transactions, enable smart contracts for properties (allowing automatic payments) or even create decentralized home rental services – all while protecting sensitive data like credit card details.

Imagine knowing everything about the property you are buying in just a few taps on your phone. Know when the property was built, who owned it first, what modifications were done, and everything to the point of you purchasing it.

NFT ledgers can store an individual’s medical records without compromising confidentiality or risking tampering from external sources since NFT transactions are validated on multiple nodes before being added to the blockchain permanently – ensuring that every record is accurate and secure from malicious attempts at manipulation.

NFT applications have been designed specifically to aid healthcare professionals as well — one such example is NFT Birth Certificates that can be issued to newborns by healthcare providers. Issuing one of these NFTs for each child can be an effective way to quickly create a lifelong identity on the blockchain that’s linked to their birth certificate – which is then verified with NFT verification apps.

NFT ledgers also provide safer methods of storing sensitive medical data while still allowing authorized healthcare providers access when required. Narrowly-defined NFT use cases have emerged in recent years where hospitals, health insurance companies, and other organizations are beginning to explore how blockchains could help improve hospital operations by verifying patient identities, recording medical procedures performed without compromising patient confidentiality.

Amazing, right?

NFTs are great for protecting intellectual property and patents. NFT tokens also allow users to prove their ownership of any piece of content, which is not possible with traditional IP rights tools like trademarks and copyrights.

Ownership of an IP can be distinguished, especially with the timestamps, the entire history of the IP. The NFT chain would be immutable, which means that the NFT owner could prove they were the original creator of a piece of work at any point in time.

It’s the same for patents, NFTs can be used to protect and certify ownership of innovation or invention. NFTs could also provide the necessary data for verification, thus creating a public ledger that documents all transactions related to patents.

NFTs are also a good way to represent academic credentials. NFTs can provide proof of attendance, degree earned, and other important information which will be stored on the NFT chain that cannot be altered or hacked into. NFTs can create immutable records for courses taken by issuing tokens for each course completed along with verifying any degrees earned through smart contract verification systems.

In the future, issuing a paper certificate will no longer be a thing. NFTs will be used as a record of academic achievement and NFT education tokens can be transferred to other individuals, giving them proof that the person holding it earned such an NFT.

As I mentioned above, products, especially in the food industry, have a huge problem when it comes to verifying where they came from, what is in it, and the like. But by using the blockchain, NFTs can be attached to a product, giving it an NFT identifier that cannot be tampered with. This is one perfect example of NFTs working in tandem with supply chain.

In addition, NFTs can also give companies the ability to track their products from manufacturing through shipping and delivery. This gives customers insight into what they are spending money on as well as maintaining transparency within a company’s supply chain.

NFTs and the gaming industry are a match made in heaven. NFTs can be integrated into the gaming world by allowing NFT cross-platform playability. NFTs, give game developers another way to expand their brand and create another revenue stream, while gamers are given more incentive to keep playing a game if they already own characters or items within it.

NFTs also allow for an easier time trading in games, which can also increase the value since NFT items in games can have a varying degree of rarity. NFT owners won’t have to worry about scams as there is no middleman involved; transactions happen instantly via the blockchain. This opens up all kinds of possibilities like never before including purchasing weapons or other equipment that has been tested by people who used it.

This is the use case that is already being used fully by games like Axie Infinity and other upcoming blockchain games.

NFTs will be used to replace tickets in the very near future. For example, parking passes can be replaced by NFT ‘tickets’ that have been assigned a unique ID which you then use when entering the restricted area for validation purposes.

This solves issues related to fraud and reduces paper usage as NFT owners only need one token instead of multiple copies of it (just like how we don’t print out our money). The same concept is applicable with bus tokens or other forms of transportation where payment verification occurs at different points during your journey via scanners.

After World War II, a lot of artwork has been lost. Some were replaced by counterfeits, some were stolen by individuals, groups, and whatnot. Soon, original artworks of old masters can be tagged for tracking through NFTs. Of course, this also applies to physical artworks that are yet to be created.

However, of course this could work both ways. Physical art can be turned into an NFT, and NFTs can be turned into physical art as well (while maintaining the digital token of course).

It can help track the originality of a specific piece and reduce or completely eradicate counterfeit artwork in circulation. This also ensures NFT owners that their property is indeed authentic, especially if they bought it from an auction house.

In many countries, voters are required to bring a photo ID and proof of residence with them when going to polling booths to vote. However, many are being disenfranchised as they do not have copies of their IDs or any form of documentation that will prove where they live, or if they are even registered to vote.

Imagine if voting is integrated with NFTs.

NFTs can help solve this problem since they would provide a digital identity for people without physical documentation that proves who they are and where they reside in the country.

This will also help eliminate cheating and voter fraud as NFTs will serve as an official record of those who voted and their votes.

I have written about the Metaverse before and NFTs will play a role in its development. NFT use cases like these mentioned above and others such as paying for products using NFT tokens are just some of the ways NFTs can help shape this virtual reality future where people spend most of their time interacting with digital avatars instead of their physical counterparts.

It is the basic foundation of the Metaverse. Your future avatar in it is an NFT. No one can steal it from you, and it is your actual identity within the space. NFTs can also be used to buy NFT avatars of others. However, the NFT of a celebrity might cost more than you can afford or not be available at all due to licensing issues.

• Music.
• Event ticketing.
• Virtual real estate.
• Gaming.
• Food and drink.
• Supply chain.
• Decentralized finance loans.
• Art and collectibles.

NFTs have generated a lot of attention and become a reality in the arts and entertainment worlds. Yet, beyond these early applications, many real-world business use cases -- from licensing and certifications to real estate to supply chain management and logistics -- are still at an early stage.

Although personal identity management is one area in which NFTs can shine, it's still early days for this type of application. As NFTs contain code with a unique set of information, they can be used to tokenize documentation such as degrees, academic certificates, licenses and other qualifications as well as medical records, birth and death certificates. The identity or certification can be issued directly over the blockchain as an NFT, which can be traced back to the owner. So, employing NFTs to digitally store and protect medical history, personal profiles, education and address details gives users better control of their data and can help prevent identity theft.

A similar concept could be applied to driver's licenses or passports in the future. While NFTs could help eliminate driver's license, visa and passport forgeries, details about the technology -- possibly using a mobile app -- have yet to be worked out.

A related application is the use of NFTs for vaccine passports. The Republic of San Marino announced its adoption of NFT COVID-19 vaccination passports. The tokens will help authenticate the documents and reduce counterfeits.

With a blockchain domain system, owners can control their domains using private keys. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) controls the standard domain name service (DNS) and there is limited oversight of these domains. This raises concerns about censorship and security. Blockchain domain names are recorded permanently in a public registry and cannot be deleted or altered by a third party, helping to eliminate these concerns.

Blockchain domain NFTs enable easy trading as well as customizable domain names. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains, decentralized alternatives to the standard DNS, provide crypto-addresses that are similar to an Instagram or Twitter handle, but each name must be unique. Although Instagram and Twitter users are not allowed to sell their usernames, ENS and Unstoppable Domains let users buy and sell crypto-addresses. The more popular names have higher prices.

NFTs have applications for selling digital real estate in both the virtual and real worlds. In the virtual world, digital real estate applications are gaining ground in games such as Decentraland. Participants create and purchase areas in a virtual world. Using NFT ensures that the objects' original producers and owners can be identified.

Another example of virtual real estate is the digital "Mars House," which represents a home framed in glass and surrounded by neon lights. Although the "home" sold for $500K, the owner cannot go inside because it is virtual. Other examples of virtual real estate include a Twitter page that is selling virtual properties as well as the buying and selling of real estate on virtual role-playing games like Superworld.

Virtual real estate NFTs are exchangeable on NFT marketplaces through transactions that are more efficient and transparent than real-world real estate transactions. Ownership of virtual real estate is recorded on a decentralized ledger through an NFT, rather than using a traditional deed or title. Holders are the perpetual owners of their digital items.

While there are already several examples of virtual real estate sales, real-world real estate applications of NFT are in their infancy. In the future, using NFTs and blockchain in the real world could be an efficient way to check titles and verify ownership history. However, this type of application raises concerns regarding security. Although blockchain helps make NFTs more secure, they can still be hacked. Other issues need to be ironed out. For example, if a private key to an asset on blockchain is misplaced, access to the asset could be lost.

Applications for NFTs have taken off are primarily in the collectibles, art, gaming and virtual worlds. Early use cases include Cryptopunks, which are 24×24 pixel art images that are algorithmically generated, and Cryptokitties, a virtual game. Other examples include:

Sports tickets and other collectibles are also being tokenized. Examples of sports digital collectibles include "Moments," sold on the NBA Top Shot platform. Moments might include a video clip of the player making a move or the NBA's Top Shot, a blockchain-based trading card system that offers game highlights.

Crypto-art and other entertainment applications derive most of their value from the ability to provide digital verification of their authenticity and ownership. In markets plagued by counterfeiting and fraud -- such as art, luxury brands or other collectibles -- NFTs can provide authentication. NFTs for art and other applications cannot be altered or copied, which is important in preventing plagiarism and creative theft and helps artists monetize their business. Additionally, NFTs give digital art the qualities of being original and rare, similar to physical art. They can be tracked from the origin of an artist or seller. Also, they enable anyone to see the selling price and how many times the artwork has been sold.

The prevention of fraud and plagiarism are also crucial in the media and film industries, which are still-emerging markets for NFTs. Files can be appended to the blockchain as an NFT to prevent them from being copied or shared without owners' permission.