The Mobile NFT Market Is Ushering In A New Digital Economy.
The NFT market is growing at a phenomenal pace. To realize it's full potential, businesses are starting to explore integration of mobile with the blockchain.
Over the last few years, NFTs have become a worldwide craze.
Almost everyone wants to own one or get rich finding a golden nugget to sell, similar to how the Doge meme sold for $US4 million.
But what is an NFT, and why do they exist?
Non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs, are data units or records on the blockchain that confer digital ownership of an asset.
Examples of common NFTs include:
Image file
Digital artwork
Music
Items found in video games
NFTs live on the blockchain, the same technology that gave rise to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Since NFTs and cryptocurrency are both based on the blockchain, the terms are often used interchangeably. However, they both serve different purposes and are not the same thing.
Unlike cryptocurrency, each NFT is distinct, and only one copy can exist in a wallet at any given time. An NFT cannot be replicated like Bitcoin or Ethereum, which all have the same value, and can exist in multiple wallets at once.
An NFT is ‘minted’ or created using a digital representation of a physical object.
For example, instead of buying a physical oil painting, buyers receive a digital version of it with proof of ownership verified on the blockchain.
NFTs And The Mobile Marketplace
NFTs have been around since 2014, but they only gained notoriety after art houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s made headlines in 2020-2021 for record-breaking auctions of digital art.
Celebrity endorsements and NFT collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club further helped raise the profile of NFTs among consumers.
Besides art, the gaming industry has been another early adopter of NFTs.
In 2021, almost US$4 billion was invested into blockchain games and gaming NFTs or digital representations of an item found in a game.
However, gaming NFTs are a contested topic.
While some gamers welcomed announcements such as Ubisoft’s to launch NFTs for its Ghost Recon franchise, other studios changed plans after backlash.
Despite the aversion of some traditional gamers, blockchain-based games and NFTs have proved a hit.
Each day, millions log in to play games like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and other play-to-earn (P2E) titles for entertainment, to earn digital currency, or to collect in-game assets for profit.
But blockchain games have been unable to realize their full potential. Until now, most crypto games ran on the browser and required players to own laptops or PCs, which alienated a significant chunk of players in developing markets.
However, crypto mobile games are gaining traction. In three months of its release in December 2021, the multiplayer battle game Thetan Arena had been downloaded 10 million times on the Apple iOS and Google Play Store.
When combined, NFTs and the crypto gaming model offer mobile game developers new avenues and opportunities to explore and exploit.
Pros and Cons Of NFTs
NFTs solve several challenges that make industries restrictive and less creator-friendly.
For example, besides providing entertainment and an escape from reality, NFTs in video games allow players to make money.
For artists, creating digital copies of their work as NFTs allows them to access a global market online:
Here are some advantages of NFTs:
Advantages
Ability To License Digital Assets:
An NFT cannot be replicated. Once a digital asset or NFT is minted, no other exact copy of it with the same value can exist.
Hence, the concept of digital ownership is now becoming a reality, just like how physical goods and assets have been licensed.
A digital painting or item in a video game can be sold on a marketplace just like shoes and books are on Amazon.
Monetization of assets:
Converting a digital file into an asset means it has some value attached to it. How does this benefit people?
For artists, the ability to transfer the rights of their work online in a decentralized marketplace helps them gain exposure to the world market without interference of middlemen, which means higher profit.
For gamers, in-game items or assets that used to be walled in a very narrow ecosystem and were in the control of a central authority are now in their hands on a decentralized platform.
A gamer can monetize time spent playing a game and make decisions of what to do with their assets.
But not all the news around NFTs is positive. Being a new technology, NFTs are speculative and uncertainty still surrounds their potential.
Let’s look at some concerns surrounding NFTs:
Disadvantages
Fears The Nft Market Is A Bubble:
The phenomenal pace at which the NFT market is concerned. There are fears that the initial hype and craze surrounding NFTs has helped create a bubble that will crash at some point. Rather than prove proof-of-concept, many investors bought NFTs to flip for quick profit.
For a new and unproven technology, a crash is dangerous. It can spell disaster for the technology as people can be just as quick to stop using NFTs as they were to buy and hoard them.
Environmental Concerns
The same technology that makes the crypto world exciting and innovative is a hindrance to its long-term sustainability.
The blockchain requires large amounts of computing power to verify transactions and keep the system secure. This translates to higher energy or electricity consumption and higher carbon emissions.
In a now famous test, in 2021, digital artist Memo Atken analyzed 18,000 NFTs and found that each had an average carbon footprint equivalent to a month of electricity usage of a person living in the EU.
This value was the result of the combination of electricity required to mint, bid, sell, and transfer ownership of one NFT.
What Is The Objective Of The Mobile NFT Market?
As hinted before, NFTs allow artists, content creators, or gamers who’ve earned items in games to monetize their work.
For example, artists now list their work on a marketplace as an NFT.
But the NFT marketplace is more than simple buying and selling. An NFT creator can also collect royalties each time their work is sold in the future. This is an innovative feature of the NFT marketplace that’s attracting creators who are accustomed to one-time profit.
To understand the NFT ecosystem, let’s look at how to buy an NFT first:
Buying NFTs
Buying an NFT may seem complicated, but it’s a straightforward process.
To get started, all that a person needs to do is download a digital wallet to store NFTs and then acquire cryptocurrency to pay for items on a marketplace. (Check out the wallet solution provided by Mirror World SDK
Examples of common digital wallets in use include Coinbase Wallet, Electrum, Exodus, and Metamask.
There are also many methods to acquire cryptocurrency.
For popular crypto tokens such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, using a credit card on a third-party platform such as Paypal or Coinbase is sufficient.
To acquire more obscure tokens, buyers may need to use coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
But no marketplace is made up of just buyers.
Selling NFTs is just as crucial to the success of this ecosystem. However, the selling process is a more complicated process.
For a marketplace to maintain its brand reputation and keep users on the platform, sellers have to go through a few extra verification steps to be able to list and sell NFTs.
Choosing The Right Mobile NFT Marketplace
An NFT marketplace is where buyers, sellers, investors, and creators meet. A few popular examples include OpenSea, CryptoPunks, and Rarible.
Yet, most of these marketplaces are browser-based, meaning mobile users have little choice to shop for NFTs on an app.
As people are already used to traditional mobile eCommerce on Amazon and eBay, the next phase of growth and innovation is tipped to be driven by mobile NFT marketplaces.
But whether shopping for an NFT on mobile or PC, these marketplaces have unique attributes. To understand how to sell and invest in NFTs, we must understand the quirks of an NFT marketplace first.
The Function Of The Mobile NFT Market
Whether a creator, or investor, it’s important to understand what is required to get started on an NFT marketplace.
Here’s a breakdown of how an NFT owner can list and sell assets:
Asset holder creates a profile on a marketplace of choice
The owner creates and links a cryptocurrency wallet to store their asset(s)
A niche or category under which the asset is to be listed must is selected and the asset uploaded
The marketplace moderation team reviews the listing and either accepts or rejects the item
If accepted, the asset can be bid on or sold at a fixed price
When an NFT owner and buyer agree to a transaction price, the listing is removed
The marketplace lists the transactions and moves the agreed price in cryptocurrency and NFT to the owner’s and buyer’s wallets.
Although following this step-by-step on a mobile marketplace like SketchAr or Panto NFT is possible, it’s a cumbersome process.
How To Choose The Right Mobile NFT Market
As a digital asset owner, great care and consideration must be practiced when choosing which mobile NFT marketplace to list on.
A few issues to consider include the security and privacy policies of the marketplace.
Centralized marketplaces are easy targets for cyber-attacks and identity fraud, as was seen in January this year when a phishing attack tricked supporters of CryptoBatz who lost money after connecting their wallets to a malicious site.
Another key issue to consider is the ease of cryptocurrency and wallet integration with the marketplace.
No two NFT buyers or sellers will be using the same digital wallet. Besides popular options mentioned earlier, a marketplace should make it easy for people to transact on a marketplace.
For people who want to create marketplaces to attract vendors to use their service, a host of other issues must be considered.
First, the platform must be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and not require technical skills.
For example, not every seller will know how to mint an NFT using anything but a GUI interface.
Another key factor for providers of marketplace services is the transaction speed. Any user, whether seller or buyer, will prefer a marketplace that can move coins and assets in either direction the fastest.
That’s why Mirror World’s mobile SDK kit is a great platform, whether you’re an NFT owner looking to mint and sell assets or a developer interested in creating a marketplace.
Mirror World SDK provides a developer-friendly solution that allows developers to implement the mint function and trade function in just a few lines of code.
For mobile marketplace developers, Mirror World’s solution provides pre-made templates that help launch a marketplace.
Instead of stressing or worrying about the nuances of being accepted on the Apple iOS or Google Play Store, developers can focus on their brand and marketing instead.
Key Takeaways
The NFT market is at a crossroads.
It has already revolutionized how artists create and sell their work and how gamers view their time playing as not just entertainment.
But for NFTs to make inroads into other aspects of our lives, making it as easy as possible to buy and sell NFTs is critical.
Here’s a review of the key facts:
The NFT marketplace is growing, and a shift towards mobile could be the launchpad for the next stage of growth.
Gaming studios are exploring blockchain-based mobile games as ownership of in-game items as an NFT provides incentives to players.
The ability to license and monetize digital assets is ushering in a new digital economy.
Selling NFTs requires an owner to mint and list items on the marketplace
Sellers and marketplace developers can use Mirror World to simplify their processes.
If you are interested in Mirror World SDK, please check the following links:
Website: https://mirrorworld.fun/developer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mirror_matrix
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9NkOWpL_b2kotDBmtE98dw