NFT is an innovation as important as BTC

In April 2024, CryptoPunk NFT number 3100 was purchased by a user for $16 million (4,500 ETH), the third-highest price ever paid for a single NFT. On April 10, 2025, the CryptoPunk was sold for $6 million (4,000 ETH), a $10 million loss compared to its purchase price a year earlier. This loss was attributed in part to the decline in Ethereum prices caused by macroeconomic fluctuations stemming from the US's "reciprocal tariff" policy, and in part to the sluggish NFT market. Trading volume for popular and highly anticipated NFT IPs, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, and Pudgy Penguins, has been steadily declining since 2022, with particularly poor market performance in recent weeks. Compared to the heyday of the past two years, NFTs are now slowly fading from view. However, NFTs are a relatively new development. The first NFT was created about a decade ago, but the technology didn't begin to gain widespread attention until Ethereum launched the ERC-721 standard in late November 2017. NFTs are far more than just digital artworks; they can represent virtually any unique or exclusive entity: identities (such as digital identity (DIDs), avatars, personal profile pictures (PFPs), personal data records, virtual real estate, artwork, assets in games or virtual worlds, music, domain names, and so on. At its core, NFTs are digital property rights: once you own an NFT, you truly own the content specified in the NFT's smart contract, whether it's an image, a game item, the commercial use rights of an asset, or anything else. This "true ownership" represents a significant paradigm shift in the internet world, reflecting the fact that people previously relied on licensing to use goods and services rather than directly owning them. In other words, we've only truly entered the "era of digital ownership of virtual items" for about seven years. Currently, NFTs are often viewed as a separate area of ​​Web3, alongside the metaverse, cryptocurrencies, RWAs, and Decrypted Tokens (DTokens). This view has both reasonable and unreasonable aspects. The reasonable part is that NFTs themselves can constitute a thriving NFT sector in their own right. Various virtual items can be minted as NFTs through smart contracts, or physical items can be mapped to assets on-chain, forming NFT trading markets like those on platforms like OpenSea and Blur. The unreasonable part is that NFTs are a tool that integrates various elements into various fields. NFTs can serve as assets for games, real estate, and props within the metaverse, as on-chain circulating assets for RWAs, as circulating assets within the DePIN ecosystem, and as unique carriers of identities, avatars, music, videos, domain names, and data. In the decentralized cloud computing power of the DePIN sector, they serve as a carrier for computing power resources for trading and circulation—computing power resources can be traded on the platform in the form of NFTs. Industry insiders have considered NFTs to be as important an innovation as Bitcoin. This recognition reflects the increasingly important role NFTs may play in the future metaverse and AI era. The market and users demand a unique, freely circulated, traceable, and secure asset carrier. Compared to traditional centralized projects in the history of technology, NFTs' innovative applications demonstrate their potential for continued growth. Apple distributes software and content for iOS devices in its closed App Store ecosystem. According to financial reports, in 2013, about six and a half years after the iPhone was first released, Apple's App Store annual sales reached approximately $10 billion, of which December alone contributed more than $1 billion. Similarly, seven years after NFT technology entered the market, NFT transaction volume in 2024 was approximately $8.9 billion, with transaction volume in December alone reaching approximately $892 million. With similar timeframes, NFT transaction volume is gradually approaching that of Apple. Interestingly, just as the iPhone impressed audiences with its high price and performance when it was first released, the same is true for NFTs. IPs like "Bored Ape" and "Crypton" are valued in the tens of millions of dollars. As the market develops, most NFTs are affordable and are used for a variety of purposes. They can be integrated with brands as a tool to unite communities, used by traditional projects for brand marketing, or incorporated into value-added products like tickets and IP-related merchandise. Following the nature of NFT, we can continue to observe its subsequent development.