How to take advantage of NFTs

The first non-fungible token boom was led primarily by digital artwork. The explosive rise of NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) have popularized this narrative. This has led to the mistaken perception that tokenizing digital art is the only utility offered by NFTs.

In reality, this is simply the first iteration of a budding new use case for blockchain technology. 

NFTs serve as a swiss army knife for disintermediation, regardless of industry. Diving deeper into tokenization and its applications makes it easy to recognize the vast potential offered by non-fungibles.

What Does The Future Hold For NFTs?

The future of NFTs is packed with potential on a scale we’ve scarcely seen before. This utility extends beyond digital assets to hulking real world use cases disrupting real estate, automotives, and beyond.

The Problem

Even today, large scale industries are forced to deal with fraud and redundant red tape. These issues stem from two root causes: 

1. A lack of infrastructure for objectively verifying key documents 
2. Supply chains crowded by unnecessary intermediaries. 

Take the automotive industry, for example. Car buyers are forced to trust that dealers have maintained logbooks and records accurately. 

Unfortunately, many are still motivated to falsify these records. Further, the cost of buying a car is inflated by the many parties involved in the transaction. These include lenders, insurers, dealers, and authorized garages. 

Unscrupulous dealers may have vested interests in hiding details that directly impact their profit margins. Bad actors may omit evidence of accidents or roll back odometers. 

While it’s true that regulations exist to deter such behavior, these measures are clearly insufficient. Odometer fraud in the US alone costs consumers $1B per year, with cases rising 7% in 2022. 

On the flipside, auto lenders incur over $7B in annual losses due to fraud from borrowers. This is due to falsified records from borrowers concerning employment, identity, and more. Identity fraud is a key issue across sectors, illustrating the need for independently verifiable records.

How NFT Based Applications Can Help

NFTs remove the need to trust external parties in order to verify data. This is specifically important in the context of ownership and provenance. 

Once a document or asset is tokenized on chain it cannot be falsified and is easily accessible. This leaves bad actors no room to mislead counterparties for their own gain. 

The impact of this utility is vast. Consider the auto industry. Insurers, buyers, and dealers would be able to access a vehicle’s history from the date of its creation. 

Similarly, tokenizing identity documents would eliminate the prevalence of loan fraud. Lenders could access NFT holders’ records of employment and credit without needing to verify their authenticity.

How dynamic NFTs could be used for cars (Michael Robinson)

Implementing NFTs in this way has the net effect of streamlining process flows. As a result, bad actors cannot falsify documentation. Additionally, this cuts out the need for the many intermediaries currently responsible for this verification.

How NFTs Will Impact Your Industry 

The utility offered by NFTs is not in any way unique to the auto industry. Fraud and redundant parties are common concerns across all major traditional industries. 

At a time when consumers are struggling to make ends meet, it’s vital that companies streamline their processes. 

Utilizing NFTs to achieve this goal benefits both producers and consumers. For producers, this means significant time and cost savings. Meanwhile, consumers can enjoy direct savings and far more seamless transacting.

Origin Protocol’s branded NFT marketplace for physical property exchange illustrates these benefits, as well as how to add utility to NFTs.

Built for real estate firm Roofstock onChain, the marketplace is the first of its kind and has seen successful sales since launching. 

The process is simple:

1. Roofstock onChain titles each home as a single member limited liability company (LLC)
2. The LLC’s Ownership is then tokenized as an NFT.
3. Buyers verify their identities with Roofstock onChain in order to get soulbound token-gated access to the platform. 
4. The property can then be transferred on-chain with full legal compliance.

This design removes the need for agents, conveyancers, and other parties that each take a cut of a home sale. 

As a result, buyers and sellers can benefit from instant settlement. This is a massive leap from the traditional transfer process, which can take 30-60 days, if not longer.

It’s even more exciting to note that sellers pay a total of 3% in fees – less than half of norms in traditional real estate.

Real estate is the largest market on the planet, with a current valuation exceeding $11T. Origin’s innovation is proof that major industries can be disrupted significantly by NFTs – for the better.
 

dynamic NFTs for real estate (Chainlink)

Developing NFTs With Utility 

Tokenizing global markets is bound to be an intensive undertaking. However, the mutual benefits afforded by NFTs make this transition more of an inevitability than simply wishful thinking. 

Individuals who recognize this shift in their industries are bound to reap the rewards of early adoption. The NFT market remains relatively small, despite the attention it’s garnered in recent years. While its size may deter some, it’s important to understand that the technology’s novelty presents vast opportunities. 

Even though disintermediation may sound intimidating, it doesn’t need to be. NFT projects that focus on disrupting real world use cases will need the guidance and expertise of all industry participants. Those who embrace this change can have a meaningful impact by harnessing this technology to drive savings to end users.

NFTs provide a common ground for people across the world to contribute to improving the way we transact and communicate. This bears striking similarities to the internet and blockchain itself. 

Origin Story’s white label marketplaces are designed to provide rich foundations for this next wave of innovation on the Ethereum blockchain. Story currently serves over a dozen leading NFT projects, including Roofstock’s marketplace for physical real estate exchange. 

These marketplaces provide an exclusive, carefully tailored trading experience that speaks to the specific needs of each community. 

While generic marketplaces provide broad access, they are unable to cater to the unique demands of novel projects disrupting major industries. In contrast, Story’s platforms place an emphasis on affirming these needs through custom features and novel solutions.

If you are a creator or brand interested in learning more about Origin Story, contact us at [email protected].