Blockchain tech is here to stay, and 2023 is shaping up to be its biggest year. From the Ethereum merge, to the widespread adoption of NFTs in diverse fields, blockchain is no longer a fringe concern but a mainstream and implicitly disruptive technology.
It can be difficult to track with any precision where blockchain and its derivatives will lead in the coming years. However, we can be relatively certain that the trends explored below will remain at the top of the conversation throughout 2023 and beyond.
Gaming
One of the key growth areas for blockchain technology in 2023 has got to be the gaming sector. For a number of years, the wider games industry has flirted with the idea of integrating blockchain, most prominently in the form of NFTs, into existing game monetization formats.
From a business perspective, many see how microtransactions, loot boxes and rare items represent a perfect fit for the digital scarcity blockchain is able to offer. However, until recently, botched attempts have caused a backlash from the core gaming community who have treated the integration of blockchain as a threat to fair gameplay.
These concerns are not unfounded, as games that have acquired the pejorative label of ‘play to win’ have been reasonably criticized for awarding gamers willing to invest money on in-game blockchain assets tangible gameplay advantages over those who opt out. Yet there’s no denying the fact that blockchain will, before long, find its way into the industries’ largest productions, from headline EA Sports franchises to triple-A concerns such as the Call of Duty series.
Even today, certain gaming sectors have already experienced more successful integration of blockchain technology into their formats. A key example of this is the iGaming industry, which has come on leaps and bounds in exploring how crypto-currencies can be utilized for real money gaming.
Leading names in the online gaming space, such as VegasSlotsOnline, a comparison platform that is well regarded for offering competitive welcome bonuses on sign-ups for its game provider affiliates, are increasingly pivoting to incorporate platforms offering games with close blockchain integration.
This makes it one of the best places to find top bitcoin casino sites today, a fact that will only continue and expand on into 2023.
Arts and Culture
When NFTs exploded onto the scene back in 2021, many of the headline grabbing stories related to their various applications with respect to arts, culture and media. This is not without good reason – after all, global media producers have struggled over the past 20 years to devise a viable means of monetizing their products in the digital age.
The real-terms share of profits a recording artist could expect from selling a compact CD in the 90s is significantly higher than they can expect to garner through streaming royalties on music platforms like Spotify today.
While this picture is slowly being redressed thanks to the rise of platforms that give more control and agency to individual artists, the fact of the matter remains that digital products are intrinsically less valuable due to their ability to be reproduced en-masse, instantly.
It is into this context that NFTs emerged as a potential savior for artists and creatives everywhere. By being able to tie products to tokens stored on the blockchain, scarcity, rarity and – resultantly, value, could once more be derived from products.
Recording artists as diverse as the Kings of Leon and Grimez have all experimented to date with releasing albums in NFT form to great effect. Elsewhere, digital artists, who were once largely locked out of the potential revenues enjoyed by their physical counterparts, could now compete on a level footing. This is precisely what happened when digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known by his pseudonym Beeple, sold his entire collection of daily artworks as an NFT for $69 million.
This not only represented an almighty payday for the creator, but catapulted him onto toplists of the world’s most valuable artists overnight. In 2023 we can expect to see these types of trends continue, as collectors and producers continue to feel-out the real-world value of digital products that have, by necessity of their medium, flown under the radar of the arts and culture financing world for many years.
