NFTs get a lot of buzz as a new way to monetize digital (often, ape-driven) art. But the enterprise applications are just as interesting.
Enterprises can use NFTs to secure data, facilitate transactions, reward consumer loyalty, and track and protect copyrights. NFTs can also represent any real world thing in the digital world. All processes that currently live on paper may one day transition to NFTs.
In this article we’re going to talk about enterprise NFTs, why they are valuable, and share industry-specific use cases to get you excited about launching your first NFT application.
Let’s look at some ways enterprises can use NFTs to win and keep customers—plus make work more efficient for their employees.
We see them often as pieces of digital artwork, but they can also represent traditional artwork. In theory, we could tokenize a Picasso and allow hundreds of people to buy a share of that painting, allowing others to profit when the art appreciates.
NFTs can also represent patents. A patent can be cataloged, searched, and interacted with via the blockchain once it exists as an NFT.
Imagine payments associated with a patent facilitated via smart contracts, the legal fees saved as middle men are removed when work is reproduced, and original creators maintaining a share of their work despite resales. NFTs have the potential to change how we manage ownership.
Blockchain technology is transforming the supply chain. An immutable record allows us to track the provenance of an item, know its location at any point in time, and automate document and regulatory submissions along any route.
A QR code linked to an NFT can track a good from a manufacturing plant to retail location and through resale—which allows consumers more visibility into the origin of things they buy.
Kaleido built a project that used NFTs to make tuna traceable. How else might NFTs empower conscious consumerism?
Any paper thing can be represented by an NFT. This includes contracts, policies, death or birth certificates, even physical objects like cars.
In our project with Riskstream Collaborative, Mortality Monitor united providers on a network that allowed a digital death certificate to enter the system and instantly notify all connected parties. Payments could then be processed automatically, saving time for office staff and making a difficult experience easier on the beneficiaries. But NFTs go beyond certificates.
We said any real-world item can be an NFT. Say our cars are represented digitally and we get in a wreck, it would be possible for drivers to share policy information instantly and facilitate payments without involving agents.
An interesting application of NFTs is in the media and entertainment space. Say a company wants to issue a piece of artwork alongside an album release, they can mint a certain number of NFTs to encourage fans to pre-order the album. If these NFTs go up in value or are resold on a secondary market, a smart contract can trigger a royalty payment to the artist and label, giving them new revenue streams for their work.
Blockchain technology and its use of verified identities will also make measurement of engagement more accurate. If I interact with an NFT or am rewarded an NFT for my participation in an event, a brand has a verified user to market to in the future.
Managing the environmental impact of goods is increasingly on the minds of consumers and business leaders. This push gave rise to a wave of measurement and investment of ESGs.
Carbon credits can be issued as NFTs, which helps establish marketplaces for the buying and selling of green efforts. Say I have 1,000 hours of clean energy tokenized, I can sell that to a company looking to offset their own energy usage.
Similarly, NFTs can power quality tracking and organic standards, as an immutable record can be transferred to each buyer along the supply chain and shared with the consumer.
Stock certificates, policies, ownership of assets—any financial process that currently lives on paper can be moved to blockchain. ERC-20 tokens can represent a digital asset that can go up in value. These tokens can be used as collateral to secure a loan.
The most interesting thing about NFTs in the financial space is if rules and regulations can evolve at the same pace as the technology. How do NFTs contribute to liquidity? How are token marketplaces regulated?
Bringing some level of accountability to a space that currently operates like a Wild Wild West will be an important part of the digital transformation of our financial systems.
GreenFence is an example of a loyalty program that uses Kaleido to increase consumer engagement. Kaleido helped them build solutions to measure and reward participation. GreenFence worked with Sony and Fox to distribute authentic digital collectibles around the release of Deadpool 2 and even offered unique collectible cards.
This ability for brands to connect with users via blockchain technologies like NFTs helps brands create exclusivity and reward loyalty. It also helps accurately track engagement which drives more accountability in marketing spend.
Play-to-earn games are changing the way esports reward participation. One group, Cyber Digital Systems, worked with Kaleido to bring fans and F1 drivers together in a novel fantasy sports experience.
In the game, fans build a team of drivers and gain points depending on how they manage their roster. They can win points and earn exclusive NFTs. These NFTs are minted from candid photos of drivers who share in the profits of each NFT sold. This means fans can “invest” in a driver, even a Karting driver, and realize gains if the driver becomes successful.
Unlike the current state of fantasy football, where names and likenesses are used by the large platforms and profits live with the leagues who license those likenesses, in an NFT-driven model the league is removed and a connection between fan and athlete is formed directly.
Companies like Glenfiddich are launching NFTs to celebrate a rare batch of whiskey. These NFTs are collectibles but also establish the legitimacy of the whiskey for a buyer on the secondary market.
Brands like Gucci, Adidas, and Louis Vuitton have waded into the digital artwork space as well. An NFT can represent a fashion item to ensure provenance and combat black market fakes. Imagine if we tokenized a sneaker. The rare item could be traded around the globe without ever being boxed up and shipped.
Deeds can be represented by a token, as an NFT can represent ownership of any physical thing. Once that physical thing is tokenized, we can automate transactions.
How much simpler might our real estate market operate if all business happened in a digital setting with fewer agents and lawyers? This is increasingly possible as we move industries into more efficient digital realms.
An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique digital asset. It can be sold, gifted, or traded—but the asset never changes. Built into the NFT is the assurance that the asset is singular.
Gartner expects that within five years 50% of all enterprises will have an NFT as part of their brand. The implications for our government are huge too. Could we one day have a digital social security card, birth certificate, even fishing license?
The answer is yes. NFTs will become a part of our everyday lives and make legacy processes easier. NFTs are one way we are going to reinvent the old way of doing business with a single source of truth, automated processes, and more time spent on creating real value for people. Our NFT platform makes it easier than ever for businesses to create NFTs at scale, gas free.
If you're interested in learning more, start with this tutorial on how to mint an NFT using the Kaleido platform.
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