What’s in Store for 2023
A summary of NFT related predictions from Messari and Coinbase
The CR3 Labs team dug through 223 pages published by Messari and Coinbase to provide you with a comprehensive summary of NFT predictions for 2023.
Messari
“I’m more excited for brands and artists than I am for speculators. I think the mini-era of NFTs as “investments” is largely over. The era of NFTs as digital “consumables” is just getting started.”.
- Ryan Selkis
General: Messari believes this NFT bubble is analogous to Bitcoins 2013 bubble. Stating, "...the 10-year trajectory of the overall [nft] market will be the same: 100x+.”
“NFTs will become a ubiquitous standard for wrapping financial assets in the same way they currently wrap monkey JPEGs.”
Blue Chips (PFPs): The Yuga Labs ecosystem is a very novel and interesting experiment rooted in the desire to “feel like you belong somewhere.” ApeCoin token holders grew 31% QoQ.
Generative Art: Art Blocks is proving to be a Veblen good, and many of the early generative art projects could maintain that status.
Institutions: Major brands that many didn’t expect entered the NFT market, including Gucci, Dulce & Gabbana, Starbucks, Salesforce, Nike, Addidas, the New York Knicks, Reddit, Tiffany & Co., and more.
Metaverse/Cryptoverse: The Crypto Metaverse has a future, but it is still far away, attributing this to the current lack of good VR headsets/hardware and the difficulties of building good games.
DeSo (Decentralized Social): Messari is bullish on this category for two reasons:
Its easier to do than gaming.
The value is disproportionately in the back end (easier to decentralize via open-source software), unlike gaming which is on the front end (best built by centralized visionaries).
ENS / Identity: ENS and similar services are extremely valuable, but its problematic that everything is public and globally searchable by default. In order for there to be greater adoption, we need privacy-focused solutions.
Royalties: The right default in the long term is to side with the creators. If creators want to *opt out of royalties, given the current market conditions, as a way to help their fans get through the bear market, that makes sense.
Opensea: Opensea will maintain its reign as long as they don’t fumble operationally, stop innovating, or experience extensive brand damage. OpenSea is the next Coinbase.
Generative AI: Prompt writers/designers will inherit the earth. AI + NFTs have huge future potential.
Coinbase
“As the world continues to shift towards the digital realm, NFTs will be a critical component of the infrastructure that allows ownership and identity to function in a frictionless environment.”
Market: We shouldn’t ignore the fact that JPEGs are still trading frequently and at significant prices. The recent downtrend could be perceived as a healthy correction in the context of a broader trajectory of cyclical adoption.
Gaming: Coinbase is closing watching gaming with the big question being: will blockchain games be developed by crypto-native firms or by incumbent video game developers?
ENS/Identity: Maintained a growth trajectory despite the market downturn. NFT adoption could be driven by utility more directly tied to digital property rights. “Themes such as digital identity, digital footprint mapping, soulbound tokens, and the tokenization of real-world assets have the ability to strip away the speculative nature of art/collectibles and emphasize the fundamental advantages of non-fungible tokenization.”
Royalties: They understand why current “profit-driven” participants are doing away with royalties but also believe that, “If royalties are increasingly ignored by market participants, we think it could threaten the adoption of the technology more broadly.
Big Brands / Next Wave: Believes corporations and brands will likely continue to view NFTs as a differentiated form of marketing spend and create projects that act as powerful onboarding mechanisms for non-crypto-native consumers.
About CR3 Labs
CR3 Labs builds tooling for Web3 gaming to help creators, collectors, and gamers unlock value in the new digital frontier.
Learn more at https://www.cr3labs.com.
Seeking more information about a particular topic, project, or technology?
Submit a research request!