2021 was a year the concept of NFT took off with primary use cases ranging from tokening digital arts to owning digital assets, such as virtual lands, within online games.

In 2022, we are starting to see other creative use cases for NFTs that bring added benefits to ownership. If you believe NFTs are about pictures that anyone can copy and download, you need to know that there is more.

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1. Wearables in real life

The term wearables refer to 3D clothing that your avatar can wear within a game such as Roblox. In 2021, the community was shocked when an NFT Gucci bag was resold for $4,115 (350,000 Robux), which is more expensive than the real bag retailed for $3,400. With a growing population interested in owning digital assets over physical assets, we are likely to see the trend continue.

In 2022, Gap added a twist by announcing an NFT program called gap threads where you can claim a cloth IRL (in-real-life) by owning a certain set of NFTs. GAP created an interesting rule that encourages NFT buyers to commit to collecting a set and created competition by limiting the number of the IRL cloth to 100. We predict other fashion retailers to follow suit creating and selling both virtual and physical wearables.

2. Private membership experiences

The main benefit of NFT is that we can verify ownership of it. Flyfish Club, led by Gary Vaynerchuk, opened the world’s first NFT restaurant where membership can be purchased on NFT. If you own Flyfish Club’s officially minted NFTs, you can experience a private dining experience at their restaurant.

The implication of membership through ownership is a noble idea. Rather than personally being introduced to join a traditional club, you can simply pay for it if you care enough about it. You can also resell the membership to an anonymous person online if they give you a reasonable offer. Any experience-based business can mimic a model to introduce an exclusive membership tier by minting NFTs vs charging for a monthly membership.

3. Phyical-first art as NFT

We’ve seen digital art being sold as NFTs as well as NFT art frame products such as Wave: Atomic Form being produced in 2021. The British Museum took an opposite approach where they turned physical art into NFT art in collaboration with LaCollection. On their website, you can buy limited quantities of 200+ Hokusai arts as NFT.

Traditionally, only the very wealthy or museums could own a piece of physical art by a famous artist. Now, you can become one of the official owners of the digital copy of traditional art as NFTs. If you appreciate historical art, this might finally entice you to join the bandwagon of digital art ownership.

4. Physical gallery of NFT art

Virtual art galleries created on virtual worlds such as Decentraland and Spatial were the community’s answer to showcasing the digital art NFTs in 2021. But the community didn’t stop there. Last week, The Seattle NFT Museum opened its NFT gallery in a physical space in Seattle, WA.

While it’s hard to miss news about NFTs, they’re still a subject not widely understood by the general public. A physical space to experience NFT art is an interesting opportunity for the average person to get a closer look at the NFT economy.

5. Physical land ownership

DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, refers to a community-led organization with no central authority. Sound familiar? That’s because it leverages blockchain to organize itself with rules and transparency. LinksDAO is among the many DAOs out there and its primary goal is to provide a country club-like experience for its members. To achieve that goal, they’ve raised $10.4 million USD in 48 hours by selling NFTs, with plans to purchase a real golf course in 2022 and beyond.

LinksDAO represents the new era of community formation. Need a large amount of funding? Sell memberships as NFT vs finding investors or getting a bank loan. Need a team? Organize people around a shared goal vs hiring expensive labor. Need a golf course? Buy it.

Are you excited for more?

We are only seeing a glimpse of what’s to come in 2022 and beyond. There is no doubt that we will witness more creative ideas that form around NFT throughout the world, and we’re excited to follow them. If you are interested, be sure to subscribe to our blog below and check out our Fresh Labs YouTube channel for more.