4: NFTs - Into the Mainstream

Financial Markets iNSiGHTS

The first half of 2021 has seen an explosion of interest around non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as everyone from musicians and artists to sports celebrities have piled in. Attention-grabbing headlines pop up on almost a weekly basis. We’ve seen the world’s first tokenised digital house (on Mars, no less, and sold for USD500,000), the Kings of Leon have released a new album as a collection of NFTs, and sports collectibles-based NFTs are gathering momentum. So far, so zeitgeist-y. Many financial markets participants could easily be forgiven for ignoring the rise of NFTs, ascribing them to a millennial trend, perhaps, or the latest blockchain fad. However, this could be ignoring a harbinger of the digital markets to come – and what they might mean for the future of financial markets.