Experts believe that next year non-interchangeable tokens (NFT) will become the driving force of engagement for brands and will bring a new audience to the metaverse

NFT – unique tokens that record the origin and history of ownership of an asset on the blockchain. And although this market segment is going through hard times right now, several key industry players still believe that 2023 will bring new opportunities to it and return the interest of the community.

NFTs will facilitate the migration of brands to the metaverse
Forrester, a company specializing in corporate growth consulting, assumes that in 2023, NFTs will become the most important point of contact between brands and the metaverse.

The vision of the metaverse is not yet fully defined, let alone its creation. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball offers the following definition in his book:

"A massively scalable and interactive network of 3D virtual worlds displayed in real time that can be asynchronously and continuously experienced by virtually unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence and continuity of data such as identity, history, rights, objects, communications and payments."

In 2023, the metaverse-related ambitions of brands are likely to develop steadily. And companies like Samsung, Nickelodeon, Gucci and Nike will continue their Web3 expansion to stay relevant and attract new customers.

Exclusive privileges for NFT holders
At the 2022 NFT conference.NYC in New York, Jeff McDonald, director of the advertising agency Mekanism, said that more and more brands will offer exclusive privileges to token holders. A striking example here is the Starbucks coffee chain, which has launched a loyalty program based on NFT. Or the entertainment industry giant Nickelodeon – he made a bet that nostalgia for the Rugrats heroes would attract cartoon fans to the Recur Forever Inc platform.

Among the clothing brands, Nike has advanced the furthest. The company uses a futuristic hybrid model that allows owners of physical sneakers to equip their avatars with the same equipment. This technology is likely to become widespread, and the most attractive solution for its implementation will be Polygon.

NFTs also offer marketers new channels for monetization and product promotion. So, the chip manufacturer Pringles has released a tokenized video as part of the CryptoCrisp collection. And the international chain McDonald's has launched an NFT collection in the USA in honor of the return of McRib.

DeFi-lending secured by non-interchangeable tokens
With the wider spread of corporate investments in 2023, NFTs will begin to be more actively used in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi).

The authors of the book about DeFi Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralized Finance and the End of Banks, Stephen Boyki-Sidley and Simon Dingle believe that soon users will be able to deposit NFT into the liquidity pools of decentralized exchanges, take cryptocurrency secured by a token and invest in other income-generating products.

At the moment, some sites already offer loans secured by NFT. The NFTfi platform, for example, pays loans in ETH, and a non-exchangeable token passes to the lender in case of default of the borrower.

Another important innovation could be NFT-based credit scores. Earlier this year, Charles Hoskinson stressed the importance of creating a decentralized identity, which is designed to realize the economic potential of those excluded from traditional financial services.