The NFT market’s pivot towards real business models
I’ve been looking at the NFT space for a while now, and something interesting is happening. The wild speculation phase seems to be giving way to something more… well, practical. Some collections are actually trying to build real businesses around their intellectual property.
Take chubby penguins, for example. It’s no longer just another collection of profile photos. They moved into retail, selling over 2 million units and generating over $13 million in sales. This is not crypto speculation money, but real consumer spending. Doodles does something similar, presenting itself as a creative platform rather than just a collection.
But here it is: most projects do not succeed in this transition. The long tail of profile photo collections continues to fade, and honestly, I think it’s probably for the best. The market has become more selective, with utilities and gaming activities more resilient to the widespread speculative frenzy we previously experienced.
The Brand Equity Debate
There is currently a real divergence in how people perceive the value of NFT. Some believe it always depends on the scarcity of the channel, while others believe real brand equity is the only sustainable path forward.
Federico Variola of Phemex takes the scarcity view. He is skeptical that most projects will transition to real business models. “There are still some difficulties in linking the value of NFTs to brand equity in the physical world when there is no clear revenue or distribution funnel,” he notes. Many NFT brands have not proven that they can generate significant business results outside of crypto.
Fernando Lillo Aranda of Zoomex sees things differently. “Most NFTs won’t recover – and they probably shouldn’t. Scarcity alone has never been a sustainable value proposition,” he asserts. He thinks that being on-chain just makes something verifiable and worthless. According to him, verification without requirements is not relevant.
I lean more towards the brand equity side, but maybe that’s because I’ve seen too many projects fail when speculation dries up.
The evolution of gaming: from gaming to win to gaming to own
The video game industry shows this transition most clearly. Remember playing to win? This model depended on a constant influx of new players to support token prices. Once growth slowed, everything collapsed. Awards turned into shows, shows turned into sales pressure, and economies collapsed.
There is now a move towards Play-to-Own. This treats NFTs less as yield-generating assets and more as layers of ownership within games. Anton Efimenko of 8Blocks explains it well: “The main problem with Play-to-Earn was that it tried to financialize the game too early. When rewards are driven by token issuance rather than actual demand, the system becomes inherently unstable.”
Play-to-Own focuses on utility and persistence. Assets are meant to maintain their relevance within the game environment, rather than functioning as instruments of extraction. This reduces sales pressure and aligns players with the long-term health of the game.
This doesn’t eliminate speculation, but it changes its place. Value relates to the ability of the underlying game to maintain engagement without constant symbolic incentives.
The liquidity dilemma
There is another interesting development: the tokenization of the NFT IP itself. This can broaden access and increase liquidity, giving communities a more direct stake in commercial benefits. But it raises difficult questions about governance and loyalty.
Efimenko points out that when the NFT IP becomes more liquid, you invite different participants. Some will care about brand, but many will primarily care about price exposure and short-term upside. Communities built around identity and culture do not function like ordinary symbolic markets.
“Liquidity can help increase participation, but it can also fragment governance,” he notes. “If too much influence is transferred to financially motivated but operationally unaligned owners, the direction of the brand becomes more difficult to manage. »
This leaves projects in a difficult situation. Broader financial access can strengthen the balance sheet, but it can dilute the base of engaged owners that successful brands rely on. A highly liquid community asset may be easier to trade, but more difficult to build over time.
Transparency is not enough
One area where blockchain still offers a real advantage is transparency. Game logic, reward streams, and outcomes can be made transparent in a way that traditional platforms often cannot match. Provably fair mechanisms allow users to verify that systems are working as stated.
But transparency alone will not restore trust. As Lillo Aranda says, being on-chain doesn’t give something value, it just makes it verifiable. Verification without a request is not relevant.
The same applies to games. Verifiable mechanisms can help solve trust problems, especially in areas like cryptocurrency gaming or reward distribution, but they do not solve the product problem. If the game is weak, the economy is extractive, or the user experience seems designed around monetization rather than entertainment, transparency won’t save it.
The next phase of the industry could test whether crypto products can combine fair mechanisms with true player loyalty. Blockchain can help restore trust, but only if the game itself is trustworthy.
What I see is a market forced to enter a more selective phase. Value must come from something more lasting than hype. Many projects attempt to move from scarcity-based speculation to actual branding without clear business models. Only collections that can function as true intellectual property enterprises are likely to maintain their relevance over time.
NFTs aren’t going away, but they are becoming increasingly difficult to justify as pure collectibles. The projects that endure will be those that can extend beyond the chain, support user demand, and give digital property a function that lasts longer than a speculative cycle.
