NFTS may no longer be at the top of every headline, but according to Arrible co-founder Alexander Salnikov, the next chapter is just beginning.
Speaking to Mehab Qureshi of TheStreet Roundtable, Salnikov outlined how NFT has evolved beyond hype into a real-world application that can define the next era of digital ownership.
Addressing the so-called NFT stagnation since 2021, Sarnikov said: He said that speculative waves have now moved to Memecoin, but the true utility of NFTs is strong and growing.
Interestingly, the global NFT market capitalization peaked at $13 billion in 2021, then fell to $3.2 billion, according to Coingecko.
So, what should NFT holders expect next? According to Sarnikov, two major stories have been formed.
“We see a lot of consumer applications, such as social networks, messengers, games, and more. All of them use NFT,” explained Salnikov.
Lower blockchain fees and scaling solutions like Ethereum rollup allow for mass adoption. “The goal is… how to create a blockchain that can handle 100 million users,” he said.
This scalability has sparked interest from investors. “Many VCs are funding today’s consumer applications as they expect this to be a story for the next five years,” added Sarnikov.
Another major trend is tokenized intellectual property. Projects such as Story Protocol and Camp Network aim to track and trade actual IPs on-chain to track their usage. This is especially important in the age of AI. “By placing the IP in the form of an NFT, it makes it programmable so that it can be tracked more effectively when it is reproduced by AI,” added Salnikov.
AI agents are restructuring many sectors, but integration with NFTS remains a niche.
“The intersection of NFTS and AI agents is small,” admitted Sarnikov. One notable case involved AI agents being paid to wear NFTs as an avatar. “They buy NFTs… to say that, OK, I’m part of this community.”
The flashy speculation ended, as Sarnikov saw it.