At SALT New York’s “Future of NFTs” panel on Tuesday, speakers gave opinions that ranged from jaded and blunt to hopeful about how the Ethereum merge will affect NFTs and what the future of NFTs may hold.
On the panel were TIME President Keith Grossman, Emily Yang (aka Pplpleasr) of pleasrDAO, Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot and UnicornDAO, John Caldwell of Wave Financial and UnicornDAO, and NFT trader Andrew Wang.
Caldwell doesn’t think that the merge, in which the Ethereum network will switch to proof-of-stake, will change the NFT market in a big way.
Caldwell said that after the merger, “anything on Ethereum” would be considered “ESG-compliant” (good for the environment, society, and the company). But he gave the impression that ESG is just a way for companies to sound good. He said that “artists and creators” are the only people who care about the effect of cryptocurrencies on the environment.
“But, you know, financial institutions have done great off of things that are horrible for the environment forever,” He said about the change from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake for Ethereum and its NFTs.
Caldwell said, “But for hundreds of years, financial institutions have made a lot of money from activities that hurt the environment.” “This doesn’t seem to be different.”
Wang said about trading Ethereum NFTs, “I hate that this might make me look bad, but the fun I had with NFTs and the people I was meeting always made the environmental costs a kind of afterthought.”
Tolokonnikova went on, “A lot of people hated me for fucking with NFTs,” She hopes that people will dislike her “a little bit less” after the merger.
But what does the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market mean for NFTs?
Caldwell says that investors may “give up on” non-traded securities in this bear market.“If you remember [20]18 and [20]19, people gave up on crypto completely, and they will give up on NFTs again,” he said.
“Obviously, prices are down from all-time highs. But there are still people in the audience here at the panel for NFTs. Like [in] a true, just horrible bear market, no one’s gonna care,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell thinks that NFTs will come back, even though their trading volume is so low compared to a few months ago that it’s shocking.
He said of the coming bull market, “You won’t even know you’re using NFTs, but they’ll be back.” Pplpleaseasr said of NFTs, “Hopefully by this time next year, people are not even really using the term anymore.”
Grossman also said that NFT technology will be in a similar place in the future. “Slowly but surely, we’re gonna move from what’s a spec state—where people are talking about the tech—to an experience state, where people talk about, like, ‘Oh, I went to Starbucks and I got XYZ.'”
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