NFTs are Bringing Entirely New Communities Together

Entrepreneur. Attorney. Athlete. I write about innovations in blockchain and crypto space. Passionate about DeFi.

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There has never been a bigger shift in how we socialize with one another than the mainstream adoption of the internet. The internet has completely shifted how many people interact with each other and has facilitated the creation of an entirely new type of relationship. In a survey conducted by SKOUT in 2016, 23,000 people around the world were questioned to identify trends in online relationships. The report found that 76% of Americans surveyed stated that they had a friend they had met online but it never met in real life. 62% of Americans said that they had at least five friends they met online.

People make friends online in a variety of ways: social media, dating apps, friend finder apps, gaming forums, and any online community centered around a piece of media that people meet to share their love for. Regardless of how these people met, the idea that you can have a friend on the other side of the world who you've never seen before is an entirely new concept. It is easy to take for granted now, but the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place.

Facebook is investing heavily into its own metaverse, a move Zuckerberg is betting their future on. The keyword itself, metaverse, is one of the hottest trending keywords and concepts in 2021. Many blockchain projects are trying to implement their own metaverses, and for good reason. Most communication is online now, and people are looking for new ways to connect in more organic ways. Any project that manages to present a smoothly integrated, easy-to-use metaverse will be in a strong position to gather a large, supportive community.

The internet is in relative terms still a brand new concept. Society is still learning how to react to and use it. Because of this, and the fact that we have made such technological strides since the introduction of the internet, the nature of online communities is still developing. One technological advancement that seems certain to have a strong influence and how we socialize online is the NFT.

The NFT Social Network

The NFT has captured the imagination of the mainstream like no other part of the crypto ecosystem. Nowhere is the meteoric rise of NFTs more than in Paris Hilton’s recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel where she explained the concept and the value associated with the tokens. The attention that NFTs are getting is bringing an entirely new demographic into the crypto world.

This new demographic is perhaps not as familiar with crypto features like wallets as those in the space that are more experienced. They are also coming into the crypto ecosystem with a whole new set of expectations and a whole new set of motivations. The first thing they will require is a much more user-friendly UI than many of the top protocols are offering.

The second is a much more socially centered experience. These are people who are coming into the space based on their connection with art or with collectibles or with some form of media. When people connect with objects, be they physical or digital, in this way, they want to share that love with others. They want to be able to connect and trade with people that they share a connection with. NFTs are taking the social element that has existed all across the internet for a decade and bringing it into the center of the crypto ecosystem.

NFTs now stand at the very center of many new types of online communities that are emerging. Digital ownership has created a community similar to the communities that exist around physical collectible trading cards. People can meet online to buy, sell, trade, and even play with NFTs. It allows a level of attachment to jpegs and gifs that has simply never existed before.

New Ways To Connect

For an idea of the type of framework that is required to satisfy the social network demands of the NFT community, one needs to look no further than Gamerse. This project aims to be the universal solution for the NFT gaming community. It hosts an aggregated marketplace for all gaming NFTs on all popular NFT markets, the “LFG,” or “Looking for Group” function that will allow individual gamers to connect and play together, and a game design studio. All of this is integrated into a social network which allows users to interact with each other with all of the functions of a normal social network. Create a profile, send private messages, create hashtags, comment and interact with content, and so on. Nowhere is the social needs of this new demographic more demonstrated than in a project specifically created to meet that need.

Another example of a more niche approach to NFT communities is Gay Aliens Society. The parent project, TokenSociety, aims to establish an LGBT community in the NFT space. Each NFT in the collection is hand-drawn by artist Tima Marso, but what is unique about the collection is the shared experience that each NFT offers. Each one gives its holder access to a private telegram group and a VIP Party in Miami. Holding first-generation Gay Aliens will give early adopters decision-making power in how the community builds out and will even give special privileges in the upcoming metaverse. In effect, this project has the potential to physically unite an NFT community spread all the way across the world. Something that is rare, not just in crypto, but on the internet as a whole.

The type of NFT collections that most obviously show this trend are collections that surround already existing intellectual copyright. The most famous of these so far is the partnership between Orbis and Marvel Studios that will see NFTs collectible, 3D statues, and digital comics all released on VeVe. This will bring one of the biggest fanbases in the world into the NFT universe. VeVe, which already hosts collections from Ghostbusters, Adventure Time, and Powerpuff girls, will become a platform for them to discuss all the most recent releases of films, comics, and of course, NFTs.

The notion of an online community is one that is still developing and in doing so shaping us. NFTs are demonstrating new and exciting ways to bring communities together across the globe, but these are still the early stages. As concepts like the metaverse become realized the potential for NFT technology to bring us together can reach another level.

Disclaimer: The author holds tokens in some of the above-mentioned companies. The opinions in this article belong to the author alone and should not be considered investment advice.

This article is part of The Gaming Metaverse Writing Contest hosted by HackerNoon in partnership with The Sandbox.

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