The presence of big players in the volatile token market may evangelize new startups, but they won’t lead to mass adoption or innovation, said Tony Ling, co-founder of NFTGo.
Major developments, such as Adobe’s acquisition of Figma, can affect creators at both companies’ properties. Adobe, for example, owns Behance, which allows users to link crypto wallets and NFTs to their profiles, while Figma offers a kit for NFT creators.
A major presence in the space, however, is not seen as a game changer, as the industry faces the challenges of high royalty payments and a bear market – as seen in the recent layoff of 20% of workers at OpenSea. “Key innovation should happen in the new center, not some existing big unicorn,” Ling added.
Brenda Gentry, blockchain consultant and CEO of Bundlesbets.com, said she believes “the industry will always adapt and find new tools,” regardless of the players in the market.
The Nansen NFT Indices, which track the performance of NFT market cross-sectors, are down 24% this year at press time. Louisa Cho, a research analyst at Nansen, explained:
“We’re seeing lower volumes in the market. But NFT projects continue to make strong community narratives and cultural references.”
The latest data from Dapradar suggests that GameFi could lead the sector back to where it was. In August, total NFT trading volume increased by 13.25%, and sales increased by 83.36% from 1.3 million Invulnerable tokens traded. Central, South Asia and Oceania (CSAO) is seeing 58% of traffic to cryptocurrency services, NFT-related, driving crypto adoption, a new Chinalysis report has found.