Innovation will drive NFT adoption despite mainstream presence

The presence of big players in the nonfungible token (NFT) market might evangelize newbies, but they do not lead to mass adoption or innovation, claimed Tony Ling, co-founder of NFTGo, in a conversation with Cointelegraph.

Major developments, such as Adobe’s acquisition of Figma, could impact creators per the combination of both companies’ features. Adobe, for example, owns Behance, a creative showcase platform that allows users to connect crypto wallets and NFTs to their profiles, while Figma provides kits for NFT creators.

However, the mainstream presence in the space may not be a game changer, as the industry faces challenges with high royalty fees and a bear market — as seen by the recent 20% staff layoff at OpenSea. “Key innovation must happen in the new center, not some existing big unicorns,” added Ling.

Blockchain adviser and Bundles Bets CEO Brenda Gentry shared a similar view, noting that she believes the “industry will always adapt and find new tools” regardless of the players in the market.

Nansen’s NFT indexes, which track the performance of the nonfungible token market across its various sectors, are down 24% this year at the time of publication. This is in line with the broader market consolidation, explained Louisa Choe, a research analyst at Nansen:

“We are seeing lower volumes across the market. However, NFT projects with solid community narratives and cultural references have continued to perform.”

The GameFi sector is likely to drive a rebound, suggests recent data from DappRadar. The total volume of NFT trading increased by 13.25% in August, and sales rose by 83.36% to over 1.3 million nonfungible tokens traded. In the Central, Southern Asia and Oceania region, 58% of web traffic going to cryptocurrency services is NFT-related, which is driving its crypto adoption, a new Chainalysis report found.