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Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, had a bumper year, with third-quarter sales hitting an all-time exclamation mark at $ 10.7 billion.
And yet, despite that eight-fold increase from $ 1.2 billion in the second quarter, NFTs are only just beginning if you think the advocates who predict the use cases for the technology are on the verge of breaking out. expand to new industries far beyond digital art.
The fashion industry provides the latest mind-boggling example of this. Fashion behemoths like Dolce & Gabbana have recently started experimenting with portable digital collectibles that attract astronomical prices. At a recent auction, a combo sale that included a physical jewel-adorned crown paired with an NFT digital version sold for over $ 1 million. The custom-made and digitally wearable Dolce & Gabbana jackets have also attracted over $ 300,000 a piece in Ethereum.
Megan Kaspar, one of the Red DAO group members behind the winning bids for the items, told Yahoo Finance that the digital fashion opportunity has revolutionary potential if AR technology can replace the need for clothing. physical.
“The fashion industry alone is $ 2.7 trillion and we expect it to at least double over the next two decades due to digital fashion,†Kaspar said while donning earrings digital gold in a Zoom video interview. “Digital fashion clothing gives new utility to fashion in general and brings fashion to a level of sustainability where all the fashion you wear, much like the earrings I have in the digital world, don’t are not produced physically. “
This same promise has also intrigued fashion companies looking to forgo the raw material and labor costs associated with producing physical garments. It may seem like a distant impossibility, but designers other than Dolce & Gabbana are already experimenting by offering such products right now.
DressX, a wearable digital market startup that works with designers to deliver 3D and AR clothing, has already garnered millions of full support from investors like Kaspar, despite launching just last year. The company offers an app for users to ‘try on’ different digital garments and has partnered with the FARFETCH retail platform to enable influencers to promote digitized garments from the latest collections from Off-White, Balenciaga, Dolce. & Gabbana and others. DressX co-founder Natalia Modenova predicts that while portable NFTs for game characters and digital worlds could also prove to be lucrative, even our current work-from-home life lends itself well to using portable NFT fashion. today.
“The other use cases will follow and they are already showing up when you could wear some of the items into the game environment and virtual world, but it’s much more limited,†she said. “We all have our own bodies and we don’t need any type of avatar to appear on screen. We all have some sort of device that will help us show ourselves on the screen and that’s why it opens up the biggest market and the biggest opportunity. “
Only time will tell if fashion NFTs will have an even hotter start than other digital collectibles categories in 2021. Dapper Labs, the parent company behind NBA Top Shot, which has sparked a digital collectibles frenzy and over $ 700 million in sales activity, plans to launch an NFL version soon. That alone could help give a boost to a record consecutive NFT quarterly sales.
Zack Guzman is an anchor for Yahoo Finance Live as well as a senior writer covering crypto, cannabis, startups and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on twitter @zGuz.
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