Stacks founder explains why many people still criticise NFT tokens
The NFT token trend has gained tremendous popularity in the past year, which has begun to decline noticeably amid the current tense global environment and the recent market crash. However, both in and outside of the cryptosphere, one can find a huge number of critics who openly declare the “uselessness” of unique tokens. So why do NFTs provoke such a strong negative reaction from many people? Stacks project founder Munib Ali tried to answer this question in an interview with Decrypt. We will tell you about the expert’s point of view in more detail.
Let’s note that NFT is indeed often perceived negatively. This was especially evident in 2021, when the industry faced a veritable hype and mass popularisation. Against this backdrop, most people outside of the blockchain industry trivialised why anyone would want a thousand-dollar picture. Especially given the fact that “it can be saved with the right mouse button”.
Naturally, in such a case, the person would not receive proof of ownership of the object in an immutable blockchain. However, people unfamiliar with blockchain find this difficult to understand, so they make jokes and express distaste for the subject in all manner of ways.
To illustrate this, just look at the queries about NFT on Google. Mostly users are confused by the prices of popular non-interchangeable tokens.
Google queries about NFT tokens
Other formulations immediately position NFT as something negative.
Other Google queries about NFT tokens
Why people hate NFT
Ali pointed out that some critics do have good reasons to openly oppose the widespread adoption of unique tokens. The fact is that auctions where “pictures of monkeys” are sold for tens of millions of dollars – an obvious reference to the famous NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club – can easily seem absurd. This is especially true for newcomers who are not used to the weirdness of the blockchain world.
I think this is one of those cases where many people choose single examples of NFT collections that do look very silly on paper. Something like this: “Hey, look, this guy bought a picture of a monkey for $300,000. And I just kept it on my desktop”.
In other words, there may be some trivial jealousy, because not everyone can shell out thousands, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for something. Therefore, the critic tends to humiliate the idea and claim to have done the same thing, but without spending money. That is to say, as if he turned out to be smarter.
Stacks founder Munib Ali
However, blockchain and NFT connoisseurs know that it’s not just about the picture attached to the token itself. In the case of Bored Ape Yacht Club, for example, it’s the fact that the asset is in demand, having risen rapidly in value since its launch just under a year ago. It is also a status symbol of sorts, both within and outside of the crypto industry.
What’s more, some unique token fans are calling for “NFT owners” to openly distribute their saved pictures, thereby supposedly giving more value to the “original” token attached to the blockchain. According to Ali, this is an “ingenious” idea, because just the pictures can’t be sold as expensively as the original itself.
But in addition to these justifications for the rising value of top NFTs, there is also a trend towards increasing the utility of tokens. The BAYC collection, for example, serves as a pass to the private crypto-enthusiast community, meaning it’s a ticket to exclusive events, free additional NFTs, events in meta universes and so on.
Tokens from the BAYC collection
It is in this aspect of usefulness and functionality that Ali sees the greatest potential for unique tokens. He therefore believes that tokenised assets will be used for a lot of real things in the future. The more silly or superficial elements of the industry may eventually give way to more serious functions. For example, NFTs will be used for real estate documents, share certificates and other purposes, the expert believes.
This is one of those things that can easily be laughed at and mistaken for something useless. It’s easy to miss the full picture.
NFT-series Cryptopunks is one of the most popular collections of unique tokens
In other words, the founder of Stacks predicts a growth in the fundamentally useful use of NFT tokens. Many will probably not accept the fact of their rapid rise in value, but we believe such a thing has more to do with a sense of lost profit rather than the real “uselessness” of NFT.
We believe that the topic of NFT tokens is quite predictably disliked by users - and especially if they don't understand the benefits of blockchain and the prospect of uncontested ownership of a particular item. And since many tokens are sold for huge sums of money, this makes the perception situation even worse. Be that as it may, NFT has enormous potential and use cases, so haters will clearly have to come to terms with the popularity of this trend.
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