blockchain: For blockchain companies, innovation over intervention is the need of the hour

The steady stream of upsetting news from the crypto world over the past few weeks is enough to make even the most enthusiastic Web 3 supporter take a step back and assess his position.

With Bitcoin diving to an 18-month-low and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon, crypto lenders such as Celsius halting transactions to curb the volatility amongst crypto assets and exchanges like Coinbase firing staff to keep itself steady, the outlook for the entire industry seems to have changed drastically from just a few months ago when products and technologies like NFTs and metaverse was on everybody’s minds.

Added to these are global headwinds that have created the perfect storm that we’re seeing the crypto industry go through currently. Indeed, with 40-year-high inflation in the US pushing the Fed to raise interest rates, daily items getting costlier thanks to high oil prices, the uncertainty over the war in Ukraine and the threat of Covid-19 and possibly monkeypox lurking just around the corner, things have decidedly taken a turn for the worse wherein investors have started dumping riskier assets such as equities and crypto assets.

While things might look bleak, I firmly believe this is a great time to go back to the drawing board and work on products and services that have the potential to disrupt the crypto industry as and when things stabilise over the next few months.

NFTs

Look at the NFT space for example. While things have been great for digital artists, there’s potential to create a lot of exciting new ways to engage audiences when it comes to this new technology of owning assets.

We haven’t fully grasped how to include pop culture in the realm of NFTs I believe. Popular games, movies and music are low-hanging fruits that can be used to create interesting NFTs with cross-collabs between artists, studios and gaming companies. These can be further incentivised to ensure that their value goes up as the holding period increases, thereby creating value for everyone in the chain.

NFTs themselves can also be created with the aim of curating a collection whose intrinsic value as a group is higher than the sum of its parts. Imagine holding NFTs for an entire cricket team that one can use to play across virtual leagues to win prizes and trophies.

There are many similar ideas that can be worked upon to make sure that when the crypto industry bounces back, collectors know exactly what needs to be on their radar.

Metaverse

Metaverse still conjures different images in different people. No one is really sure what it might turn out to be like, which gives meta companies an added incentive to make this one of the best new technologies the world has ever seen.

Metaverse, in itself, is such a wide field that the number of applications, avatars and avenues to involve audiences can be varied enough to include a large subset of the population. Whether it’s a fashion contest streamed with 3D effects, a virtual tree planting drive for the environmentally-conscious or walking through a premium liquor store on digital land, the possibilities are endless.

However, all of these ideas only work if we take the initiative to make them work now. Since most organisations would have frozen marketing and sales budgets in this uncertain quarter, the same amount of money and time can be dedicated to research and optimising future technology to create memorable NFT collections and mind-blowing metaverse applications.

It might sound easier said than done but this is probably the best way to look at the current setback. All indicators otherwise point to an eventual revival and a booming crypto space in the months and years to come.

How we make the most of this temporary blip will decide how much further we can take the crypto industry once the sun begins to shine after the current winter spell.