What Today’s NFTs are Missing
“So what do NFTs actually do?”
That’s a question anyone in the blockchain space gets a lot. While the general concept of what an NFT is has been permeating the public, what they do is another matter entirely.
It’s usually not enough to tell someone that it’s a nonfungible token. It’s not enough to say that it is a digital item that can be provably owned by a singular entity. It’s not enough to say that it’s a verification of authenticity, able to be traced back to the original author. To most, these are still subsets of the definition. They are not tangible explanations of what NFTs do.
Show, Don’t Tell
Consider describing an airplane to someone who has never flown. It’s made out of aluminum. It has wings. It has engines. It’s a transportation vehicle. Those features make up what an airplane is. But what it does is nearly impossible to convey on paper; you have to show someone how it moves, preferably from the inside. Because even as you see it up in the air from the ground, it’s hard to comprehend what it means to fly.
That’s why even after the Wright brothers flew, most people who just heard about it, including scientists, didn’t understand it.
Today’s NFTs aren’t conveying that experience to the average person. We still find ourselves using 90% of our time explaining what it is, and perhaps 10% showing someone a pixelated image on a phone to show what it does. That’s not satisfying to the average person, and it can be a disservice in general considering what the potential of the underlying technology offers. After all, there’s only one chance to make a first impression.
What NFTs Are Missing
What’s missing is a real-world experience akin to taking that first flight in an airplane. NFTs are missing an experiential component that helps people realize not only what it is, but what it does and what’s possible. While it’s incredible to see developers and artists create amazing digital art native to the blockchain, that’s only the tip of the iceberg and a tip that the public has seen over and over again.
At ORIGYN, we understand that NFTs have to continue to evolve. They have to encompass more real-world tasks and have more real-world utility to provide the experiential feel that will affect people.
Over the coming months, ORIGYN will pull back the curtain on the ORIGYN NFT standard. The promise of building on the low-cost, large data-holding protocol of the Internet Computer will be realized. When NFTs can contain a full gigabyte of data at an accessible cost, a slew of real-world experiences open up.
Currently, 1 Gigabyte of data stored on the Ethereum blockchain for a calendar year would cost somewhere around $240,000,000. On Solana’s blockchain, the year-round storage of 1 Gigabyte of data would ring in somewhere around $840,000 dollars.
That same 1 Gigabyte of data stored on the Internet Computer, would cost roughly $5 per year. — Rhys McIntypre
The ORIGYN NFT will fill in the missing puzzle piece of real-world utility and experience to the current NFT problem. Follow us on our socials (Twitter and Discord) to stay current with our releases and the projects we will announce soon.
