WAGMI’ is dead: UnicornDAO Emily Yang, TIME President & others predict future of NFTs

SNEAK PEEK

  • The NFT rise of 2021 and beginning of 2022 has ended.
  • The “Future of NFTs” panel shared a detailed look on the Ethereum merge and NFT bear market.
  • The merge doesn’t look like having a great impact on the NFT market.

At a panel regarding the ‘Future of NFTs’ at SALT New York, speakers shared their views that ranged from bored to straightforward as well as hopeful about the effect of the Ethereum merge on non-fungible tokens and their future. 

The panel was graced by the presence of  Keith Grossman, TIME President, John Caldwell of Wave Financial & UnicornDAO, Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot & UnicornDAO, writer & NFT trader Andrew Wang and Emily Yang of pleasrDAO.

Caldwell believes that the NFT market won’t be majorly affected by the Ethereum merge.  

He shared that anything on Ethereum will be taken as ESG-compliant in the post-merge world. However, he said that ESG is basically a corporate talking point and creators & artists genuinely care about cryptocurrency‘s impact on the environment. For those who don’t know, ESG refers to environmental, social, and corporate governance.

Speaking further, he said that he has no idea whether financial institutions care about the same excluding the ESG rating, as it is something they have to do. 

Taking a dig at financial institutions, Caldwell said that they have been quite great in doing things that are terrible for the environment, which this time too doesn’t seem an exception.

Talking about trading Ethereum NFTs, Wang shared that though he enjoyed the NFTs and meeting people, all this was a matter of concern for the environment. 

Tolokonnikova mentioned that she received a lot of hate owing to her involvement with NFTs; however, she hopes that the hatred will decline with the merge.  

Caldwell shared that people may refrain from NFTs in every way because of the bear market. Talking about the same he mentioned that people gave up on crypto in 2018 & 2019 and the same will happen with NFTs.

In his statement, Wang said that even if it is termed an extended bear market, this is a time when even his belief in WAGMI has gone. 

Despite the NFT trading volume going low in comparison to the volume of a few months before, Caldwell believes NFTs will be back on track. 

Pplpleasr aka Emily Yang said that next year, exactly this time, people will not use the term NFT any further. The statement was supported by Grossman.