Beyond the monkey pictures and into Coachella NFTs: Where the tech is headed next

Last week, the coveted music festival Coachella announced that it will sell lifetime festival passes as Solana-based NFTs. The launch includes three separate NFT collections, with the Coachella Key Collection providing ten NFTs for purchase that grants owners ‘lifetime access’ to the annual festival.

This news has piqued interest around alternate uses for NFT technology and where the space might be headed, beyond abstract avatars and artworks.

CryptoVista spoke to blockchain entrepreneur of Consult Web3, Daniel Yurcho, on the uses of NFTs as potential tools for secure and verified ownership of any digital asset, and how this can be supported in the mainstream.

CryptoVista: Why is this move one being taken by ticketing events like Coachella? What is wrong with the current ticketing systems in place?

Yurcho: Coachella is always looking for new ways to engage with its audience and create buzz around the festival. NFTs are a perfect way to interact with their concert attendees, create a new revenue stream, and generate media attention by utilising blockchain technology. Current ticketing systems are outdated and clunky, and Covid helped accelerate the adoption of purely digital tickets. Tickets to sporting events are unique and scarce by nature given the seat number, access level, or ticket number. It just makes sense for each individual ticket to be blockchain verified and stored securely by the ticket holder. This will reduce ticket fraud dramatically and allow users to control their tickets simply via their digital wallets.   

CryptoVista: The use of NFTs as a tool is showing itself to extend far beyond the artwork and the monkey pictures that are highly popular in this space. What are some of the implications of these prevailing uses for NFTs as we move towards Web3?

Yurcho: Moving towards Web3 means a much more decentralised internet experience. The biggest use case for NFTs prevailing in the future is how they allow brands and creators endless ways to engage with their audiences.  Coachella’s lifetime tickets is just one creative example of utilising NFTs in a manner completely distinctive from other festivals and events. Centralised entities will be able to engage with users in a decentralised, trustless manner when creating true digital collectables.

CryptoVista: The value of NFTs derives predominately from exclusivity. Do you think these new uses of NFTs will remain mostly available to the upper echelons of society or is there potential for it to enter the mainstream?

Yurcho: NFTs are already becoming mainstream and accessible to anyone with an interest in collecting digital items. Most of the news surrounding NFTs at the moment is in relation to large sales of Apes, Punks, or Metaverse land. These are simply attention grabbing headlines aiming to have the average person scoff at paying millions of dollars for these items. If you do a deeper dive at the market as a whole, you see there are limitless possibilities for the average person to get involved in the space. NFT ownership is concentrated to 0.1 per cent of all crypto holders worldwide, leaving quite a bit of room for involvement of the community as a whole. Mainstream adoption is inevitable as the NFT space expands and becomes a less concentrated group of collectors.

CryptoVista: How will NFT technology remain profitable if they do?

Yurcho: In order for NFTs to remain profitable in the future, mainstream adoption is key. Excessive prices will still occur for certain collectables with large followings, but the average price per transaction will come back down to reality due to the volume of people who will be collecting. People will be purchasing and selling NFTs in the future without even realising it as well. Seamless NFT integration is going to occur in many aspects of everyday life leading to millions of tokenised transactions.  

CryptoVista: How does the potential use of NFT technology differ from the experimentation (i.e within art) currently occurring across the sector?

Yurcho: The potential use of NFT technology goes far beyond the idea of owning a digital collectable like artwork.  Coachella is demonstrating ways to create real world value from owning digital collectables. The greatest way to utilise the technology is to create tangible real world value in addition to the digital value NFTs provide consumers.  NFT usage will go far beyond the idea of simply collecting and displaying a collectible.  One of the greatest examples of NFT usage being different in the future is Metaverse land development. Individuals, and especially brands, are coming up with creative ways to use and potentially monetise their digital real estate.     

CryptoVista: Where do you see the greatest potential for the future of NFTs?

Yurcho: The greatest potential for the future of NFTs is creating real world value from what seems to be a purely digital collectable. This is already the case with investing and selling NFTs for a profit, but the future potential of real world value goes far beyond just investing. Coachella is a prime example of a brand creating real world value through an NFT forever. NFTs are very new to the world, and the potential value is only limited to the imagination of the creators.