NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have emerged as a massive technology trend recently. Here we look at the biggest future trends and explore how this concept might evolve over the coming years.

1. THE BIGGEST FUTURE NFTS TRENDS
EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT

2. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
THE BIGGEST FUTURE NFTS TRENDS EVERYONE
NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have emerged as a massive technology trend
recently. Here we look at the biggest future trends and explore how this
concept might evolve over the coming years.

3. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
It seems strange to think that this time last year, most people hadn’t even heard of NFTs. In
2021, they took the art world by storm, with pieces like The Merge and Beeple’s The First
5000 Days selling for tens of millions of dollars.
Of course, they remain a controversial topic. Some claim that the energy usage and carbon
emissions connected with their use offset any potential benefit they might have. At least one
company backtracked out of plans to become involved in the trend following negative
reception to the news from their customers.

4. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Many others, however, are confident that they bring value and innovation to a number of
different industries, from obvious ones such as gaming and anything involving the metaverse
to less obvious use cases such as real estate, healthcare, and insurance.
While so far, most of what we have seen in the NFT space has been related to art and selling
artwork, we are likely to see many more uses for the technology in years to come. Here’s a
look at some of the areas where exciting work is underway.

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FIRST – WHAT IS AN NFT?
NFT stands for non-fungible token. Collins dictionary – which picked the phrase as its word of
the year for 2021 – defines an NFT as “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain,
that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or collectible.”
Leaving aside the technical details, an easy way to think about it is a digital certificate of
ownership that, because it is stored on an encrypted, distributed database (a blockchain),
cannot be forged, tampered with, or altered by anyone apart from its owner. This means they
can be used as a theoretically fool proof method of creating scarcity (and hence value) for an
otherwise infinitely-replicable piece of digital information. The information it represents could
be a piece of digital art, music, a piece of clothing or item to wear in a game, the keys to a
virtual reality house – potentially anything that someone might want to be unique.

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NFTS AND THE METAVERSE
The metaverse is a hot topic in technology circles right now, and definitions differ according to who you ask.
Generally speaking, though, it refers to a connected, persistent digital ecosystem that is more immersive than the
existing internet – perhaps involving virtual reality (VR). The metaverse will let us work, play, socialize, travel, and
educate ourselves within a consistent digital environment. It has been called a trillion-dollar business opportunity
and “the biggest disruptor to how we live our lives, ever seen.”
NFTs will play a number of important roles in the virtual worlds that will make up the metaverse. Firstly, they
enable digital items to be unique. We all know that people in the real world like collecting and showing off rare
and unique things, and there’s no reason to think the virtual world will be any different! It’s already possible to
buy unique artwork to display in your virtual reality art gallery. Similarly, Nike recently sold 600 pairs of shoes as
NFTs – making itself over $3 million in the process. In reality, these were actually just pictures of shoes that can
only be looked at. In the future, it’s likely that they will be functioning virtual shoes that can be worn by our
avatars as we go about our digital lives. Think of it as being able to kit out your character in a video game in one-
of-a-kind clothing that no one else can own. After all, there’s no reason to think that anyone’s ego will be any
smaller in the metaverse than it is in the real world.

7. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
NFTS AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS
It’s estimated that by 2030 there could be more than 125 billion connected devices in the world. This
huge network of computers, vehicles, appliances, wearables, industrial machinery, and many other
items is what we mean when we talk about the internet of things (IoT) – and many think that NFTs
have an important role to play.
Much of the communication that takes place on the IoT is made up of machine-to-machine (M2M)
communications. Think of the smartphone technology that you may well have in your own home; for
example – devices like smart light bulbs, refrigerators, and AI voice assistants are all capable of
communicating with each other. In a smart factory or warehouse, the same thing happens but at a far
greater scale, as hundreds or thousands of machines all communicate and exchange data to keep the
business running. NFTs are potentially useful here because they allow machines to authenticate the
data that is coming in from other machines. Basically, this is the digital equivalent of a warehouse
manager checking the paperwork when they take delivery of a container load of inventory.

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Ideas like this as already being put into operation today – cybersecurity specialists WISeKey
uses semiconductors implanted onto physical network infrastructure that automatically mint
NFTs in order to certify that the device is trustworthy.
Another initiative is looking at connecting NFTs with city infrastructure assets such as street
lamps, bus shelters, and traffic lights. Here, the tokens would enable accurate data from
these devices to be made available for commercialization by companies looking to develop
new services, such as communications companies.

9. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
NFTS IN HEALTHCARE
Advocates for the use of NFT technology in the healthcare space point to the fact that it could one day
potentially help individuals to take control of their own health data. It could even let them make money
from it.
Personal healthcare data is bought and sold all the time, generating vast amounts of value. However, very
little of that goes to the person who really owns the data – the patient themself. Today, it’s easier than
ever to generate and collect health data, thanks to the availability of wearables, monitors, and sensors.
Even genomic information is cheapy accessible, thanks to services that let individuals map and analyze
their own DNA information. Many of us have no idea where the information generated every time we use
a device or interact with a service is ending up. In fact, it turns out that much of this information will
probably eventually make its way to the black market – where an individual healthcare record is said to
be around $250. Yes, even criminals are making more money from our health data than we are.

10. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
NFTs allow information to be tagged with data, which means it can be tracked whenever it is passed
on. Not only does this mean better oversight of where our information ends up, it means one day
we could potentially take advantage of the smart contract capabilities of NFT and blockchain
technology to ensure we are paid the royalties we are due every time our data is passed on.
That’s the theory, anyway – and companies such as Aimedis.io are already exploring ways of making
it a reality. But regardless of whether we will one day be able to claim our share of the billions that
are generated through the sale of health data, NFTs could potentially bring transparency and
accountability to the transfer of this highly sensitive information, and that alone has to be a good
thing!

11. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
FAD OR THE FUTURE?
Of course, for every person proclaiming that NFTs are the future of any (or all) enterprises
and fields of human endeavor, there is another saying it is simply a faddish flash-in-the-
pan that will quickly be forgotten about. The truth is that no one knows for sure what the
future holds. However, it's undeniable that a lot of big players are investing heavily in the
technology, and there's clearly a firm belief, among some very smart and well-resourced
people, that it will have a role to play in our futures. Certainly, there are pressing issues
that need to be addressed – it would be morally wrong to simply ignore the astronomical
energy use involved. But at the same time, the technology is potentially too
transformative to be written off or ignored.

12. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
For more on future trends, sign up for my newsletter, and check out my books
‘Tech Trends in Practice’ and ‘Business Trends in Practice.'

13. © 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and
companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data
more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as
artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is
a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for
Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers
and shares content that reaches millions of readers.

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