Ethereum Merge has the potential to drive mainstream adoption of NFTs in India: STAN’s Parth Chadha
As Ethereum merged on September 15, 2022, investors have been wondering how it affects the non-fungible token (NFT) market. Market analysts seem to believe that the Ethereum merger will be beneficial to NFT projects in terms of ensuring wider adoption of the asset class. However, many have expressed concern that NFTs built around Ethereum could see a price increase. In a conversation with FE Blockchain, Parth Chadha, Co-Founder and CEO, STAN, a blockchain-based Esports fan engagement platform, talks about how the Ethereum merger could benefit NFT mining and how it will help the growth of NFT in markets such as . India. (Edited excerpts)
What will be the outlook for the NFT market after the Ethereum merger?
The Ethereum merger was a necessary step to make the digital asset chain energy efficient, which aimed to reduce energy consumption by around 99.5%. While the merger was and is expected to be an important development in the Web3.0 world, I believe that the NFT market will remain unaffected because of this. Rather, the NFT market is expected to be driven by the general sentiments in the cryptocurrency market due to the presence of end users. Although the merger has not resulted in the reduction of gas fees, which refers to the amount required to perform a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain, Ethereum aims to be a stable and secure layer-1 protocol while layer-2 protocols can work on the scalability side of things.
How is the Ethereum merger expected to affect NFT-based games and other applications?
I expect NFTs and other gaming tokens to continue to follow market sentiment. The Ethereum merger should not directly affect any game projects and the global trend of Web2.0-based games, players and game developers making the transition to Web3.0-oriented gaming in the coming years. However, one of the possible repercussions of the merger could be that, in the long term, the uptake of decentralized financial transactions (DeFi) will increase, which will lead to support for NFT mining and sales. As a result, the outcome may benefit NFT-oriented gaming and the Esports community in the near future.
In a developing NFT market like India, how will the Ethereum merger impact?
Ethereum Merge has the potential to make improvements to the overall blockchain ecosystem by helping with the drop in gas prices, which in turn will help boost the development of layer 2 economies like the Polygon network. In the coming years, I expect the merger to be one of the primary triggers that will drive mainstream adoption of NFTs in a country like India, which is currently going through digital asset-oriented developments.
After Ethereum merger, will revenues earned from NFTs be exposed to legal implications?
As this is a technical upgrade, no further legal implications will be involved. In India, investors can take advantage of Ethereum Merge-based applications for NFTs only after the country’s government introduces a set of regulations to bring clarity to the digital asset ecosystem.
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