Real-World NFT Use Cases That Will Benefit Society

Time to face the basics: what is NFTs used for, basically? An abundance of high-value NFT sales have continued to dominate the space, despite the recent bear market, so it’s no wonder that many still associate NFTs with financial speculation. Lumping NFTs into this bracket seems like the most practical way to answer why people even buy NFTs in the first place.

But in reality, NFTs are so much more than that.

Part of the reason brands are flocking to Web3 is the need to make more people familiar with the technologies associated with it. That obviously includes NFTs, which have largely served as a way for creatives to completely free themselves from middlemen when it comes to making a living from their work in recent years. So here’s an overview of some of the best real-world use cases for NFTs and how they can make your life in the future a little more convenient.

1. Permanent records

In a sense, one of the oldest challenges of legitimizing property or capital with irrevocable longevity falls to the wayside thanks to the possibilities of NFTs. The best example of this? Soulbound Tokens (SBTs). These are a new type of NFTs proposed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, and are designed to act as a comprehensive suite of useful tools for online users to preserve – and protect – their identity. So how does this seemingly digital-first piece of technology fit into real-world use cases for NFTs?

Should SBTs launch as planned, they will have a very significant impact on online and offline life everyone. Through SBTs, users unlock all kinds of tools, such as the ability to create medical records, academic records, employment histories, and everything in between as an NFT. But SBTs are non-exchangeable, which makes them different from regular NFTs. In addition, SBTs are designed to be immutable, permanent records to ensure that everyone can remain connected to their digital and physical existence.

Perhaps the most promising aspect behind SBTs is their ability to be a complete opt-in experience. In other words, you don’t need every bit of imprinted information publicly associated with your physical self (or stored where you can lose it). In addition, users do not need to enter every detail of their lives and achievements onto the blockchain. Only the parts you want to preserve.

2. Voting

Unfortunately, despite the massive inroads we’ve seen in technologies used to record electoral votes, these systems remain susceptible to one main form of attack: fraud. Although electoral issues are not the biggest issue on the global agenda, the possibility of widespread fraud in the voting system still exists. Reason? The electronic voting systems that democratic countries rely on, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of which have been widely documented on the internet since these parts first came to prominence.

But conducting the voting process digitally may not be one complete inadequate premises. Enter the blockchain, and of course NFTs. Registering votes on the blockchain guarantees that each vote registered cannot be tampered with and will remain registered indefinitely.

Ahead of the 2022 Philippine elections, a Filipino citizen caught on to this idea and launched an online voting platform powered by the blockchain, and of course NFTs. The catch? He was a 12-year-old boy. But he may have been onto something. The results from his online voting platform mirrored results from official pre-election polls, and even the actual results of the 2022 Philippine elections.

3. Property

NFTs didn’t just unlock the virtual real estate industry. They also benefit the IRL real estate industry. And that makes perfect sense. After all, for most people, homes end up being the only high-value investment they make in their lives. So how do NFTs fit into this ancient industry?

First, let’s look at precedent. Real estate NFTs are not an entirely new thing – the first recorded real estate NFT sale took place in 2017 when TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington bought a blockchain-backed apartment on Propy. In 2021, he later auctioned off this property on the blockchain for 36 ETH, which was valued at approximately $93,000 at the time.

For the real estate industry, this is huge. And it largely boils down to how NFTs can have smart contracts written into them, potentially reducing the otherwise months-long process of buying and selling real estate to a fraction of the time. With the successful transactions facilitated via Propy, it may only be a matter of time before this new practical reality becomes the norm in the real estate space.

Other parties, such as Roofstock, hope to facilitate further sales of NFT property to more forward-looking home buyers. In October 2022, they managed to facilitate the sale of a detached house to an investor with one click. “Instead of waiting months for a deed, appraisal, title search and deed preparation, I was able to purchase a fully title-insured, rent-ready property with one click,” real estate investor Adam Slipakoff said in a press release shared with nft now. But how does this work? After a one-time issuance of a membership token to a prospective homeowner, Roofstock allows these users to enjoy true one-click real estate transactions.

NFTs in the real estate industry are also making the prospect of owning a home more realistic for more people around the world. “With DeFi, we have an opportunity to offer cheaper and faster asset-based financing options [to consumers,]” said Roofstock’s Web3 CEO Sanjay Raghavan in an interview with nft now. “Between faster and cheaper purchase and financing options, we see NFT-driven real estate transactions becoming highly relevant for investment properties.”

4. State documents

In today’s predominantly cashless society, an ancient headache remains. The inconvenience that follows when you lose your wallet. No, not your crypto wallet (that would probably sting just as much, if not more) – we’re talking about your actual physical wallet. Credit cards, debit cards, beloved Polaroid photos, all gone. But the loss that can sting the most in this case is your driver’s license.

But what if getting a new one didn’t have to be such a pain? This is precisely what led the Romanian government to develop an institutional NFT marketplace. By allowing citizens to stamp their official government documents and cards on the blockchain as an NFT, the Romanian government hopes to significantly cut down on the amount of red tape needed to replace or update these documents. It’s not the most exciting application of NFTs out there, but it can definitely make one’s life a lot easier. Combine that with potentially minting land titles as NFTs and the potential to simplify society as a whole gains credibility.

5. Games

Modern games usually require you to interact digitally with a screen or device of some kind, but NFT integration gives players a way to preserve all of their achievements and assets across all of their games, regardless of platform. But for now, mainstream game developers still need to address this and indeed do the implementation.

So how will this work? Should a game implement blockchain technology into its service package, players will be able to keep – and truly own – all of their in-game rewards, assets and collectibles. Although platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox do preserve a player’s in-game achievements across multiple generations of consoles, the same cannot be said for whatever collectibles and skins they might earn in-game. Ditto for consoles launched before the online revolution that took place through the seventh generation of gaming consoles.

“Play ownership, utility, interoperability, transferability. These are all things that people have shown they wanted for 30 years, said Wax’s game manager Michael Rubinelli in a previous interview with nft now. “We will show [gamers and developers] how it works. Because this is 2010 [all] again where they did not adopt free-to-play. Every business model transition, every platform transition, everything has been resisted by the entrenched groups because they don’t know how to operate.”
Given Wax’s activity in the blockchain gaming sector, Rubinelli believes it is poised to serve as an example for other players in the blockchain gaming space. “We are building a north star that shows the world how to get player ownership, NFT tools and play. The participation models of the economy have never existed in games and in a legal way, and yet we are bringing it to light,” he said.