Types of NFTs

Art

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most popular type of NFT is still art – the act of expressing or putting one’s creative ability and imagination to use. Traditionally, digital art could be replicated into an endless number of perfect copies. On the other hand, NFT digital art keeps track of the digital artwork’s creator, market value, and asset ownership. This allows you to validate an NFT in the same way that you would a traditional painting.

With the arrival of non-fungible tokens or NFTs, the art world is swiftly evolving. In particular, digital art sales increased in 2021 and 2022, with several high-profile artists and corporations experimenting with new ways to sell their work using blockchain technology and NFT art.

Crypto art has started to be recognized by even centuries-old auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. When digital artist Beeple sold a digital collage for $69 million at Christie’s, it was one of the first high-profile NFT art sales that would soon become a more common occurrence. Below we get into the different types of NFTs, with collectibility at the forefront.

Digital Collectibles

A digital collectible is a non-fungible, one-of-a-kind cryptographic token that represents a digital item. Each digital collectible is special and unique in some way, so you can’t swap one for another directly without one side losing value, making them ‘non-fungible.’ Because of the quick expansion and popularity of NFTs, there are a plethora of NFTs on the market. These tokens are the cryptocurrencies that represent NFT projects.

A crypto collectible is a digital asset that is cryptographically distinctive and non-fungible. Every crypto collectible token is unique or has a limited amount produced, in contrast with normal cryptocurrencies, which all have identical and interchangeable tokens. Crypto collectibles can even be considered as physical objects like pets or avatars. These collections can be generated manually or automatically, depending on the creation process.

A great example of the collections in question is NFT avatars – algorithmically generated digital representations of cartoon or pixelated figures in a “profile photo” format, usually from the shoulders up. Each NFT avatar is one-of-a-kind, with a variety of identifying characteristics (i.e., clothing, hairstyles, accessories, etc.). With fantasy and science fiction themes, avatars can be cartoon animals, humans, or abstract beings.

Some of the most popular collections include CryptoKitties, which was one of the first applications of NFT and smart contracts to demonstrate the power of distributed ledgers, Crypto Punks, which regularly sell for millions, and assets from the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The best part? Anyone can become a creator, as we’ve seen from Benyamin Ahmed, the 12-year-old creator of the Crypto Whales NFT collection.

Gaming and Metaverse Items

The newest generation of gamers have begun to demand rewards for their time spent playing virtual games, which was in part made possible by the creation of the metaverse, resulting in the birth of the play-to-earn model.

The play-to-earn model gives players full control over their assets and the ability to increase their value by doing things like purchasing products, unlocking improvements, breeding creatures, and so on. As a result, players create value for both the community and the developers by participating in their favorite games’ in-game economy.

NFTs bring more life to the online gaming world by creating a new gaming economy that unlocks in-game value, where the best players are rewarded accordingly for their efforts. The play-to-earn reward system is simple; tokenizable assets like weapons, avatars, skins, land, items, and characters can be traded as NFTs for monetary compensation like crypto. Some of the best games that have NFT integration include; Mines of Dalarnia, Decentraland, Sandbox, Age of Rust (and the broader Enjin ecosystem), Alien Worlds, and Upland.

Axie Infinity is the most popular NFT game; it is a play-to-earn NFT game inspired by Pokemon, where Axies take the place of Pokemon. Axies are fantastical creatures that players trade, raise, and use for combat. The game rewards players for pitting their Axies against one another with Small Love Potions, an in-game crypto token. Each Axie is also a non-fungible token (NFT), which can be bought or sold on NFT exchanges.

Utility NFTs

Special access NFTs are another type of NFT utility that is rapidly growing yet still remains underdeveloped. Special access NFTs are a type of token that grants its owner access to both digital and real communities, experiences, and things. This means that these NFTs can be used as entry tickets for both digital and physical events, for example.

Event organizers can also use their preferred blockchain platform to mint the required quantity of tickets with an NFT ticketing system. They can program the NFTs to establish a sale price or have an auction where people who are interested in the event can bid on tickets. Customers then buy NFT tickets and save them in their digital wallets, which are accessible through their mobile devices. This means the customers can validate their tickets easily with their mobile devices when they reach the event’s point of entry.

Music

Music fans can be a very dynamic bunch. Artists can connect directly with these fans without the need for a music streaming service or a record label by selling music and accompanying artwork on the blockchain. Furthermore, because there are fewer parties involved, it can result in a higher profit for the author if done correctly. Artists who plan on minting music on the blockchain still have to count the costs, though, because NFT marketplace fees for listing and selling work and the cost of computing and recording a transaction on the blockchain can pile up.

There is also a decentralized music streaming network built on the blockchain called Audius (AUDIO). The main goal of the project is to offer musicians and curators more control over their work. Artists can create immutable records for their work by uploading them to Audius, which will be safeguarded by a decentralized network of nodes. 90% of the project’s revenue will be paid to music curators in AUDIO, Audius’ native cryptocurrency. Stakeholders that support the Audius network will receive the remaining 10%.

Sports

Sports NFTs have emerged as one of the hottest trends in crypto. Fans have always desired to purchase rare tokens related to their teams, such as autographed gears, and NFTs have become a digital extension of that desire. There has even been a collaboration between sports NFTs and card trading games recently, as we’re starting to see the global growth of NFT sports cards, making the assets even more popular. These NFT sports cards will act as a digital representation of the physical collectibles we’re all used to. The most famous Sport NFT currently is Sorare, a football fantasy game in which participants use digital player cards to buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team.

Domain Names

People have started to recognize the value of domain names in the crypto space, and they are quickly becoming commodities on the NFT market. A good example is the ‘win.crypto’ domain which was sold for $100,000, setting a new record for a blockchain domain sale.

Domain names can sell for a lot of money since they represent the digital cornerstone of a business – and a clean, professional, and recognized domain enhances reputability right away. Moreover, websites have now become a portal that internet users all around the world can get access to with a single click; thus, relevant and unique domain names on the NFT market will undoubtedly drive long-term business development.

The biggest NFT Domain Name platforms are Unstoppable Domains, ENS (Ethereum Name Service), and SpaceID (BNB).