After a meteoric rise beginning in 2021, the nonfungible token (NFT) market took a bit of a tumble in 2022. The floor prices of many projects gave way, particularly those centered around digital art, and many had declared that NFTs were dead. While sales volumes have begun growing again in 2023, they have not yet returned to the levels seen during the heights of the previous euphoria.
Yet nonfungible tokens as a technology have not actually gone anywhere, and many builders took the now-thawing crypto winter as an opportunity to continue developing relevant products, platforms and use cases, without the pressure and constant media attention of a bull market.
One such NFT ecosystem that continued building during the bear market is Rarible, which comprises the Rarible Protocol, Rarible marketplace, RARI token, Rarible DAO and RARI Foundation, with a new “layer 3” mainnet, RARI Chain, on the way.
On Episode 26 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Jonathan DeYoung and Ray Salmond spoke with Jana Bertram, head of strategy at RARI Foundation, about what makes Rarible unique, how the NFT market can become sustainable, the future of nonfungible tokens, exciting use cases, and more.
Solving NFTs’ branding issue
Ever since NFTs exploded in popularity, the technology has maintained somewhat of a poor reputation in the mainstream, and even in some crypto circles. Many people see them as just speculative assets, bad for the environment and/or a complete waste of money. Related to this, most people in the mainstream strictly associate NFTs with digital art.
Bertram acknowledged this issue, telling DeYoung and Salmond that NFTs, like anything else, can face criticism due to people’s past experiences. As for whether NFTs need a complete overhaul, “Rebranding something, that’s very common business practices,” she said. “And I think you can go through several iterations and probably will never have the final and formal form of how you call NFTs, right?”
“I’m personally okay with NFTs, especially when you’re talking to a…
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