NFTs – One Step Closer to the Metaverse

NFT is to the Metaverse what keys are to locks

The concepts of “Metaverse” and “Avatar” were first mentioned 20 years ago, in the 1992 sci-fi thriller “Avalanche.” In 1993, Hal Finney, the first senior cryptocurrency expert to receive Nakamoto’s bitcoin, and a pioneer of bitcoin, came up with the idea of crypto trading cards, which included the concept for what is today known as the Non Fungible Token (NFT).

The next twenty years witnessed the boom of the information technology space, alongside other technologies such as 5G, Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR). Blockchain economies grew, the concept of the Metaverse is once more being discussed, and Facebook changed its name to Meta, in anticipation of the upcoming Metaverse.  

Meanwhile, the ERC-721 NFT Standard is constantly being improved and tens of thousands of NFT products have been traded on-chain. NFT trading platforms such as OpenSea, Super Rare, alongside NFT aggregators, have become increasingly abundant. The rapid rise of GameFi applications such as Axie Infinity has also lent credence to ideas around how NFT can integrate with the Metaverse, GameFi, and others.

The Metaverse may still be an evolving concept, but it is already showing early signs of its own idiosyncrasies in the forms of creative play, open exploration, and its connection to reality. In particular, the maturation of NFT technology has enabled individuals to enter a Metaverse that is characterized by a combination of fiction and reality.

Complete chain identities with the NFT

Society is made up of a collection of relationships between people. Having a Decentralized Identifier (DID) is the first stepping stone into the Metaverse. And having a complete on-chain identity for the user requires a crucial role on the part of the NFT. Huobi NFT has hopped onto the decentralized identity bandwagon, and launched user DID registration in early 2022. Huobi NFT has adopted industry-leading NFT certificates for the disbursement of user rewards and credentials. To date, 950,000 users have successfully registered their DIDs through Huobi NFT and have completed their DID registration on-chain. At the same time, Huobi is spearheading the development of an equity NFT product, which has now been successfully distributed on Huobi Global. The series of NFT products has been effectively integrated into the exchange platform, making the NFT product a symbol not only of on-chain status, but the user’s position in the Huobi Metaverse. This underscores the unique value of the entire NFT series. 

Benefiting NFT creators

Creators are a source of growth in any art market, but in the past, creators have only been able to profit from the first transaction, without the added value that follows. This is not only unfair, but can also have a negative impact on the art ecosystem as a whole. The NFT alleviates such unfairness, by tracking all movements of a piece of digital art, and allocating a portion of subsequent proceeds to creators’ accounts via the use of smart contracts. This practice ensures creators’ rights can be more securely coded, adding to the dynamism, development and prosperity of the arts ecosystem.

Opensea, the largest NFT trading platform in the market, currently collects  2.5 per cent of the transaction value, including first or second sales, for its service. Royalties paid by buyers to NFT creators, on the other hand, are set by NFT creators themselves, but at no more than 10 percent. OpenSea will transfer these NFT royalties every two years to a collection address designated by the NFT creator. Huobi NFT, on the other hand, is understood to have charged creators less for its services and empowered creators on its chain with its strong ecological resources.

Unique communities

Man is lonely and always needs the approval of his own kind. There are people who consume to achieve identity, and there are those who chase after stars to achieve their sense of identity. Unique collectibles have a special place in the digital world and in cultural circles and are essentially an extension of the consumption culture. The non-fungible nature of NFT technology allows such pieces of art to carry more information than those in the old world.

 Throughout the ups and downs of the NFT industry in the past year, the industry has seen beauty and uniqueness in collections such as “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS,”; others have reminisced about the innocence of the past in various superstar NFT series, and yet others have achieved collector supremacy via the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” series.  NFT, as the best externalized form of copyright, has cemented people’s identities. Huobi NFT has successfully released a series of NFT products from stars such as Hanazawa Kana and other celebrities and is in the midst of exploring partnership with other key opinion leaders.

In short, the emergence of NFT has allowed for the mapping of virtual goods as trading entities. These virtual assets can be mapped on-chain, thus realizing the value flow of data content. At the same time, the NFT has changed the traditional art trading model. The NFT can become the embodiment of the Metaverse if the physical key is the same, the program can confirm the user’s rights by identifying the NFT, and in the future, the NFT can serve as the token for credentials in the virtual world. The NFT provides a solution to the problem of virtual property rights without the need for a third-party registrar. Essentially, the NFT provides a digitized key to facilitate the transfer and execution of rights, and a range of corresponding rights can exist outside centralized services or centralized databases, greatly enhancing the efficiency of data asset transactions and the fact that the transfer process does not require the involvement of third-party programs.

2022 is truly the year of the Metaverse, and the continued practice of blockchain companies led by Huobi gives us a glimpse into what the Metaverse will look like in the near future. Pioneers such as Huobi will spearhead the way into the Metaverse and pave the way for the development of this exciting space.