Meta recovery day – After several intense weeks where all eyes were on theFTX deal and on the earthquake caused by Sam Bankman-Fried, calm seems to be gradually returning to our beautiful ecosystem, not without leaving a few open wounds. Many projects and users have lost funds. Entire treasuries remained stuck in the hands of the fallen crypto platform. In this slump of collapsed projects, where is the NFT market?
Spoiler: let’s face it, the sector looks gray. Given the magnitude of the FTX bankruptcy, it will not be a question of drawing up the list of missing persons. It will rather be a question of observing to what extent the NFT sector is perhaps surprisingly one of the least affected by this unprecedented crisis.
While the polar era that we are going through drags on, the timid news of the world of non-fungible tokens recent weeks shows a glimmer of hope. Some even go so far as to say that NFTs, backed by the metaverse, will be worth billions of dollars in a few years.
So as not to get lost in the Meta-Hebdo:
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NFTs in the eye of the storm FTX
The reputation of web 3 scratched by the FTX disaster
In its conquest of the world, FTX had several angles of attack. Beyond seducing the American body politic with millions of dollars – especially the Democratic Party – FTX had also set out to conquer the sports sector. It was even one of its spearheads across the Atlantic.
It is through the development of numerous partnerships, such as the one with the city – pro bitcoin – of Miami in which SBF wanted to move the premises of FTX.US, which FTX decided to conquer the United States. Many sports organizations then found themselves in trouble with the collapse of the empire of Sam Bankman-Fried. The Miami Heat of the NBA, Major League Baseball, the Golden State Warriors, the Washington Wizards, the Washington Capitals are all sports clubs that have seen their reputation tarnished.
For example, for the partnership with the Miami Heats 135 million dollars had been put on the table. The local stadium, renamed FTX, had its letters removed now as scarlet as the markets. The club’s website – ftxarena.com – however, still bears the traces of this bygone agreement.
“Reports on FTX and its affiliates are extremely disappointing. Miami-Dade County and the Miami Heat are taking immediate action to end our business relationship with FTX, and we will work together to find a new naming rights partner for the arena. (…)»
Some Shakes in the NFT Ecosystem
Beyond Coachella NFTs sold on FTX and now lost in the metaverse, Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire has reached some tenors of the NFT ecosystem. The web woven by the two companies Alameda Research and FTX Ventures has thus kept the funds of many crypto players in its nets.
The presence of certain big names in this list calls out. Yuga Labs for example, parent company of NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club or Sky Mavis et Axie Infinity hatched by the asian giant Animoca Brands. However, most of the actors mentioned seem to be little affected by this situation, or at least not as much as certain ecosystems. Of course, games from the Solana and/or FTX ecosystem such as Star Atlas or even Aurory bit the dust with the collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire. Nevertheless, the sector remains resilient and withstands the shock by finding its interest in the decentralization.
Yat Siu, CEO of Animoca Brands speaks
Certainly not directly displayed on the wall of fallen projects of our colleagues from The Block, the Animoca Brands company supports many NFT and metaverse projects and investors. We mentioned Sky Mavis for example, but it is also part of Temasek a Singaporean investment fund.
In an open letter named “ Glimpse the future through the prism of bygone days The web giant 3 has tried its hand at exercising transparency while confirming its hegemony in the sector:
“Our exposure to FTX is limited to an insignificant trading balance and we continue to invest in and support the ecosystem, most recently with Cool Cats, VCORE, Viker and a number of yet to be announced investments. Animoca Brands remains financially strong with a cash balance of approximately US$214 million, digital assets of US$940 million with an additional US$3 billion of off-balance sheet digital reserves, and a portfolio of some 380 companies representing the best Web3 and blockchain companies of the world. worldwide (OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Sky Mavis, The Sandbox and Upland to name a few) which represent significant added value to the group’s balance sheet (as of November 1, 2022)”
In addition, the business manager continues to recall the importance of working in the direction of decentralization, not hiding his dismay at the FTX situation:
« (…) I am upset that the important work of making the Web decentralized, freed from central power structures that continue to abuse their disproportionate power, is once again overshadowed by a very small number of irresponsible actors. (…)”
Finally, even if Yat Siu recognizes difficulties and that companies in his group will surely be in trouble during this period, the entrepreneur advises to see ” the future through the prism of bygone days “. That’s what we’re going to do too.
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And, if we look more closely, certainly the weather is gray, however, the NFT sector did not admit defeat during this ordeal.
DeFi and Gaming: a resilient sector
The news of the past days has, in fact, been able to show us that the NFTs continue to conquer the world. Microsoft, the web 2 giant confirmed this month its interest in video games, more particularly those related to web 3. The giant has invested in Wemade, a game creator company that has launched its own blockchain, by participating in a collection funds with other South Korean companies. 46 million dollars have been harvested.
Furthermore, therise of GameFiillustrated by Dappradar analysis shows that blockchain games and metaverse projects have raised in the last quarter $1.3 billion. This figure is certainly down 48%, however, it is heating up in the midst of a bear market.
Finally, while FTX was living through dark days, Sony continued to prepare the web 3 ground for its emblematic console: the PlayStation by filing a new patent around the theme of NFTs.
NFTs, darlings of sports brands
Despite the crisis, NFTs therefore continue to develop. The sports world has not been let down by the FTX carnage. Messi even has signed with Sorare to promote the game of fantasy football. He thus becomes Ambassador Sorare. In this same development dynamic, Sorare, a French unicorn, in the sights of the AMF, has found a provisional agreement haswith French regulations pending legislation adapted to so-called web 3 games.
On another front, but still with the stars of the round ball, the NFTs of the first NFT collection of Ronaldo on Binance have gone on sale. Finally, for your style, rest assured, Nike is thinking of you and is launching a community platform on Polygonthus continuing a methodical conquest of web 3 and its players.
Don’t panic about NFTs: the metaverse is still worth billions of dollars
Thus, after several weeks of bad news, some optimistic speeches deserve our interest. According to this new Deloitte report, the metaverse and NFTs could bring in some parts of the world up to 1.4 trillion dollars by 2035. Let’s hope that the bear market will not last until then.
12 Asian economies are studied by Deloitte: Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, mainland China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. . Closely linked to the use of NFT, the use of a parallel world hanging from our reality seems, according to the analyst already in the mores of our darlings and would be in the future, one of the sectors which will have the finest growth: the world market could reach 13,000 billion dollars by 2030.
“We estimate that the impact of the metaverse on GDP in Asia could be between US$0.8 trillion and US$1.4 trillion per year by 2035, or approximately 1.3-2.4% of overall GDP. per year by 2035”
So, as we have said too often in recent days, caution is still in order. Even if NFT Bored Ape Still Selling For $1 Million, look at the market as a whole and consider that many NFT collections have lost over 90 percent of their value. The crypto winter weighed down by the Terra and FTX episodes promises to be tough and long. However, as we mentioned, the NFT sector does not seem to have said its last words. We were even able, “through the prism of the past days” to find what – a little – warm our hearts.
Cryptos and blockchain technology are still young and volatile sectors. Any investment involves risk. As a well-informed investor, have you done your own research and decided to take the plunge? Register on AscendEX, and benefit from 10,000 Satoshis (sats) of bitcoin offered by following this link (commercial link).
