Just caught an interesting take on where nfts might be headed. A prominent exchange founder recently shared his thoughts on why both nfts and DAOs will likely make a comeback, but probably not in the form we saw during the 2021 hype cycle.

His argument is pretty compelling actually. He's saying the technology was real, it just wasn't ready for mainstream use yet. The infrastructure couldn't handle it, the user experience was clunky, and honestly, a lot of what happened in that cycle was pure speculation. We're talking 95% of nft collections becoming worthless, the overall nft art market dropping 93% from its peak. Even the famous collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club got crushed, down over 80% from their highs.

Here's the thing though - he pointed out that about 60% of nft trades in early 2022 were basically wash trading, where the same entity was buying and selling to themselves. That inflated everything artificially. When the broader market turned, nfts had nothing to stand on.

But his broader point is that this doesn't mean the tech itself was flawed. He compared it to video streaming in the early 2010s - it existed, it worked poorly, people hated using it, but then quietly became how we consume entertainment. Same concept applies to nfts and DAOs. They haven't really broken through yet, but that doesn't mean they won't.

He reckons the next iteration will look different. Maybe it's called NFT2.0 or whatever, but the core ideas will evolve. Tokenized art specifically - he thinks it'll have multiple comeback attempts before something finally sticks at scale. The timing is uncertain, but the infrastructure and user experience will eventually catch up.

It's an interesting perspective on why failed narratives don't always mean failed technology. Sometimes it's just about waiting for the right conditions and the right tweaks to make something that previously flopped suddenly work.