One of the biggest appeals of non-fungible tokens is that they can take pretty much any shape. You can link an NFT to physical assets, like clothes, luxury goods, or even real estate property, and digital assets, like an illustration or a song.
Their flexibility is what makes them so valuable for brands and creators from all industries. It allows them to harness the different types of NFTs to boost recognition, build an audience, grow their business, and reach their goals.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the main types of NFTs and discover what can be turned into a token.
Types of NFTs
1) NFT Art
Digital artwork was a significant driver of the NFT boom. Between August 2021 and February 2022, the total sales of NFT art reached a whopping $1.7 million. And to this day, art remains the most popular form of NFT out there.
Art NFTs created a lot of business for digital artists looking to share and monetize their work while safeguarding their intellectual property. In fact, many of them have made millions through NFT art. For instance, anonymous artist Pak Murat has sold over 66,000 NFTs. His most notable work is called “The Merge,” which sold for $91.8 million on Nifty Gateway.
2) PFPs
You’ve probably seen avatars of funny-looking apes flooding Twitter and other social media. Those are PFPs.
PFP stands for “profile pic,” and it refers to an NFT project based on digital art that people often use as their social media profile pictures. Think of CryptoPunks, Deadfellaz, and Bored Ape Yacht Club.
PFPs could be included in the “art” category, but they deserve an entire section for themselves. They have become so popular that many platforms, including Twitter, are adapting to keep up with the times and now allow people to connect their wallets to use their NFTs as profile pics.
3) Music NFTs
If 2021 was the year of NFT art, then 2022 is the year of music NFTs. Simply put, anyone can listen to tokenized music, but ownership of the rights to that song is conferred solely to the NFT owner.
The potential use cases for music NFTs in the industry are countless. In fact, the music NFT market is expected to reach over $42 million by 2032, and we’ve already seen many famous musicians and bands leverage their potential.
Kings of Leon was one of the first bands to release NFT music, but others quickly followed suit —like Grimes, Muse, and Shawn Mendes.
4) Generative Art NFTs
Generative art is wholly or partially created by an autonomous system that determines the features of each piece. This system randomly originates colors, patterns, and shapes into digital artwork —with or without involvement from a human artist.
Sometimes generative art projects converge with PFP, offering holders images of randomly-generated characters that they can use as profile pics.
You can take a look at some cool generative art projects at Art Blocks, an exclusive marketplace for generative art on the blockchain.
5) Collectibles
Remember your favorite trading cards from your childhood? They are back —as NFTs. Collectible NFTs are tokens linked to digital trading cards, video clips, sports memorabilia, concert or game tickets, and more.
This type of NFT offers a lot of possibilities for companies to harness nostalgia and boost engagement with their audience. Disney, for instance, entered the NFT collectibles arena with tokens representing “Golden Moments” from Star Wars, The Simpsons, and other franchises.
NBA Top Shot is another great example. It allows holders to buy and trade official digital collectibles of the NBA and WNBA's greatest plays and players.
6) Gamified NFTs
This type of NFT involves tokenizing different elements or aspects of video games. Some examples include game items (such as weapons or skins), point scoring systems, rules and mechanisms, player interactions, etc.
Incorporating NFTs into the gaming industry has led to a surge in play-to-earn and play-and-earn games, in which users trade and swap game assets in the form of NFTs for financial rewards. This is what we know as GameFi, and many companies are moving into this new arena.
CryptoKitties pioneered the use of NFTs in video games. It’s an online game where users can buy and sell NFT kitties, breed them, and earn rewards. The game has become so popular that the total supply currently exceeds 2 million tokens.
7) NFTickets
Your next concert ticket could be an NFT.
Thanks to blockchain technology, which supports NFTs, it’s very easy to verify the authenticity and ownership of assets, including tickets to all sorts of events. By presenting an NFT at the entrance, event organizers can easily validate the identity and tickets of attendees, preventing counterfeit ticketing practices.
Coachella, for instance, recently launched a collection of exclusive NFT lifetime passes to all their events, as well as art prints, photo books, digital collectibles, and more perks.
8) Memes
Memes are a major part of our pop culture, used over and over again as online reactions. Now, thanks to NFTs, memes have become valuable assets that anyone can own, allowing their creators to get a bit of a financial reward for their wits.
In early 2021, Nyan Cat was auctioned for almost $600,000, and it made history as the first meme to be sold as an NFT. Trollface, Bad Luck Brian, and Grumpy Cat are among the many other memes that have been tokenized and traded.
9) Virtual Fashion
Our online presence is constantly expanding, and companies are taking note of that. In recent years, many have launched NFT collections of virtual apparel to enable us to customize our online identities, some of which are even connected to real-life goods that holders can redeem.
Nike is a pioneer in this field. For example, in April this year, the company released an NFT collection of 20,000 virtual sneakers called Cryptokicks.
10) Virtual land
The metaverse trend that began in 2021 has led people to purchase land in virtual worlds and video games. That land is often represented via an NFT that secures and validates ownership of the asset and helps keep a proper record of transactions.
Decentraland is probably the most famous example of a metaverse-style platform where people can buy and sell parcels of virtual land and use them to their advantage —placing ads, hosting events, using it as a space to showcase their products, etc.
11) Domain names
NFT domains are domain names stored on a public blockchain. They give users complete ownership of their stored data and can replace wallet addresses, so they simplify crypto transactions.
Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum are two of the main blockchains supporting NFT domain names at the moment.
Over to You
Now that you have a deeper understanding of the NFT landscape and the types of tokens out there, it’s time to put that knowledge to work.
Do you want to launch a generative art project? Are you developing a video game and want to incorporate some gamified NFTs? Get in touch with us, and let’s get to work!
Wanna find out more about NFTs? Go check out our blog posts.
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