While sales of NFTs have slowed, they're far from dead.  The amount of NFT based transactions still happening in the current down market is proving to investors and businesses that NFTs are here to stay.  Platforms like Twitter and Instagram implementing them provides more evidence for this claim. 

What is almost completely gone is part of the NFT world, the stupid part where we saw this thing sell for $7 million. Most suspected this was a temporary phase that could only happen with something that was both new and exploding in popularity - they were right.

But many are still saying the NFT world still has huge room for growth, and there may be some truth here.

The argument that NFT's have just begun revolve around virtual reality (aka the Metaverse) as any object in a virtual world can become your tradeable and sellable property if turned in to an NFT. 

Brands like Nike believe the people wearing their shoes in the real world may want to be seen wearing them in the virtual world as well - same goes for those who line up outside of shoe stores in the middle of the night to be among the first there when it opens, and pay 2 to 3 times more for a 'limited edition' sneaker.

Sneakers that they don't need to buy the materials to make, pay for the labor to assemble, or ship from one location to another to sell - this is the dream that has major brands drooling. 

This is the thinking behind valuing NFTs.com at the selling price of $15 million...

An 'undisclosed buyer' finalized the purchase through Domainer, a domain marketplace operated by GoDaddy, with Escrow.com facilitating the transfer of funds. 

“It was a pleasure working with all parties involved at NFTS.com, an incredible opportunity for the buyer to acquire one of the best possible .coms, if not the best, in the entire web space3,” said Matt Holden of Domainer

For some perspective, Crypto.com sold for $3 million less.

Buyer Most Likely a Company...

With a price-tag this large odds are a company is behind the purchase.

With brands like the NBA, NFL, Visa, Coca-Cola, Dolce & Gabanna, Tommy Hilfiger, EA Games, Ubisoft, Gamestop, Nike, Adidas and so many looking to make their mark in the NFT space, there's a lot of cash flowing behind the scenes. 

Chainalysis estimated institutional investors accounted for 33% of all NFT related transactions in their report on Web3 earlier this year.

Waiting For The Mystery Buyer to Show themselves...

Now the NFT industry is waiting to learn who the buyer was, until then, all they can do is speculate.

Will NFT marketplaces have some new competition?  Whoever the buyer is, they have the funds needed to be a potential threat.

Could a single clothing or gaming company have snatched it up to use as a place to feature their NFTs exclusively?

Or, this could come to the most anticlimactic, but very possible ending of them all - someone from the domain industry who believes they can sit on for awhile and make a few million selling it again - perhaps just waiting for the market to recover from this most recent downturn. In other words... just HODLing it.

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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News