-infinite royalties for artists
-ownership for communities
-24/7 marketplaces
-token-gated unlocks
That’s all well and good, but what NFTs do next is going to 🤯 your mind. 🧵
2/ Retail
Retailers from 7-11 to Gamestop will use NFTs to incentivize IRL transactions, leveraging creators to drive traffic to storefronts.
For example, Yeezy NFTs that only unlock with purchases from Gap stores, or NFTs that unlock exclusive features for Tesla vehicles.
3/ Services
NFTs will unlock access to services and hobbyist communities. Q&As and tutorials with influencer chefs, photographers, doctors, and niche enthusiastic communities will boom.
This will also extend into IRL services like transportation, hotels, and massages.
4/ Activism
Communities where NFT ownership supports political causes will gain traction as millions flow into community wallets.
Imagine a Climate Change NFT collective where sales are directed towards lobbying efforts, and those efforts are coordinated by a community DAO.
5/ Social Feed Marketplaces
Social feeds based on NFT collections will emerge, providing insight into the strategy of top collectors, and a platform for collectors to interact.
These feeds will evolve into social commerce marketplaces, featuring reviews, analytics, and more.
6/ Multiplayer
NFTs will create hive activity by incentivizing group behavior. MMORPGs that unlock levels once 10k users have aped in. Airdrops of rare NFTs to users that have signed contracts to merge their base-layer NFTs.
Collecting is going to become a team sport.
7/ NFT Borrowing Platforms
Because NFTs can unlock temporary access—like entry to conferences—markets for short-term lending are emerging. For example, I’ve personally leant friends $FWB so that they could attend events.
Imagine this as a marketplace: StubHub, but for NFTs.
8/ NFT Indexes
Getting exposure to hundreds of NFTs via indexes will boom as market movers tap collectors for funds.
Imagine a Christie’s NFT ETF. They have the influence to get assets to liquidity—investors will ape into that.
It will also broaden support for NFT communities.
9/ Collateralization
To date, lenders have been averse to NFT holders borrowing against their assets.
But as institutional $$$ flows in, and assets become better stores of value, collateral markets will promise flexibility and liquidity for all NFT holders, not just whales.
10/ Fractionalization
Splitting up NFTs into individual shares gives more people exposure to blue-chip assets, like owning a piece of a cryptopunk.
The result? More liquidity for holders, and more appreciation of blue chip assets as money enters the markets.
11/ DeFi
As enthusiasts become more comfortable staking and farming their holdings for yield, NFTs promise incentive beyond APY%.
NFTs will become base DeFi assets, with community access included. These won't be simple savings plays—they'll also be investments in communities.
12/ Loyalty Exchanges
As brands and creators seek to reinforce loyalty, community behavior will be rewarded with NFTs. Did the member contribute content? NFT. Complete surveys? NFT. Make a purchase? NFT.
Tokens are more liquid and bragworthy than traditional discount codes.
13/ R&D
Brands and creators will exchange NFTs for insights on product development: pain points, marketing claims, roadmap and more.
The NFTs will unlock early access to product releases and potential profit sharing. Brands will track and maintain these key relationships.
14/ Content Submission
Users will submit content like short form videos, reviews, and tutorials in exchange for NFTs. It’s a marketing flywheel.
Rights can be programmed into contracts so that the use of the contributor’s content in advertising could yield them future profits.
15/ Customer Cohort NFTs
Imagine receiving an NFT for being one of the first Air Jordan customers, and how valuable that would be today. How Nike might reward you years later with special access and product.
Cohort NFTs prove that you took a certain action, at a certain time.
16/ Education and Customer Support
Upon demonstrating exceptional knowledge of a brand’s product, users can receive NFTs in exchange for onboarding newbies into the community, or providing support.
This can be exponentially more impactful than a brand employee doing the same.
17/ Bounties
Creators and brands will drop unique quests within communities, rewarding completion with NFTs. This could be anything from completing a questionnaire, to referring members into the community, to attending events.
Bounties can be highly competitive, or open wide.
18/ Leaderboards
NFT communities will gamify by highlighting the performance and participation of top holders.
Top contributors will receive rewards and clout, thereby incentivizing communities to hold and participate in order to secure better returns on their investments.
19/ We are so early, and the future is so bright. The promise of NFT technology to democratize and reward community participation grows every day. This punk is bullish.
For more tweetstorms on the future of crypto, follow @chriscantino.
Thx for reading.
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1/ What Nintendo’s history teaches us about the future of NFTs and intellectual property. 🧵
2/ Today, Nintendo is the best-selling console on the planet, with a market cap of $50B. Mario & friends are worth more than Twitter and Dogecoin.
But they got their start in 1889, selling hand-painted playing cards—an emerging category of tradeable gaming collectibles.
3/ Think of these as Nintendo’s “genesis” drop: establishing their IP with physical, collectible tokens.
Today, NFTs are in the “trading cards” phase; the difference being that ownership is recorded on the blockchain, providing increased utility and liquidity for token holders.
1/ The odds were stacked against us: bootstrapped, crowded category, no network to speak of.
But we sold our startup for $100M+ thanks to an exceptional product—and some original marketing.
Marketing strategies we used to beat out the competition. 🧵
2/ Invest in personal relationships 🤝
☑ Wine and dine your partners. Send cards. Text them. Move the needle 5%, and you win the edge over your less-engaged competition
☑ Recognize network effects take years to build. Connections you make in year one will 10x by year five
3/ Write candidly to engage 💁
☑ Your biggest advantage is your authenticity—develop a voice and be honest af
☑ If you wouldn’t text it to your friend, don’t use it in your copy
☑ Share customer convos on social, thereby inviting more and creating a flywheel
1/ How and why the NFT market will move towards Solana. 🧵
2/ To be clear, the NFT ecosystem is not going to abandon ETH. But its surge in popularity has resulted in prohibitive, unsustainable gas fees.
There are simply too many people and transactions on the network—and they’re not going away. A symptom of ETH’s success.
3/ We’ve been promised an eventual reduction in gas fees via ETH2, an upgrade to the Ethereum network—but that’s a whole year away, and may not mitigate the problem as much as we hope.
That leaves competitors with a significant time window of opportunity.
1/ When it comes to your startup’s valuation, revenue is only one piece of the puzzle.
Here are the most important factors affecting your company’s price tag. 🧵
2/ Category expansion
If an acquirer aims to further category reach, do you represent that mobility?
Snack brands might gain an edge by expanding into frozen food. Web3 startups may be cheaper to acquire than to build. Gen Z brands could bring life to aging holdco portfolios.
3/ You’ve “stolen” a potential acquirer’s sales
Taking market share brings urgency to any deal. Highlight examples of how you’ve outsold competitors and disrupted placements they used to own—from search results to marketplaces.