There is not one of us who has not heard of the concept of NFT lately. NFTs, which can be translated as ‘non-fungible token’ or ‘digital asset that cannot be changed’ into Turkish, are becoming more popular especially in these times when the concept of ‘Metaverse’ is becoming widespread. Many people around the world feel that they have invested heavily in the future by paying thousands or even millions of dollars for these works.
NFTs are stored and protected by blockchain technology; It means digitally certifying unique assets such as photos, tweets, GIFs, videos. Many people say it is unreasonable to pay millions of dollars for these assets, while others think NFTs are democratizing the art world and digital universe. However, a published study reveals that this is not the case.
“Whales control the NFT market”
The research, published in Nature, analyzed 4.7 million NFTs released between June 2017 and April 2021. In the examinations made, it was revealed that 6.1 million transactions were made using 160 different cryptocurrencies with these NFTs, and Ethereum (ETH) was used the most, as can be expected. Also; While it was stated in the study that art NFTs were worth 6 thousand dollars on average, and Metaverse NFTs were 9 thousand dollars, it was stated that only 1% of NFTs in the market were worth more than 1500 dollars, and the average of the majority was only 15 dollars.
In addition, the findings also revealed inequality in NFT trading. According to the results of the research, 10% of people who traded NFT performed 85% of all transactions. It has also been revealed by experts that this segment plays an active role in almost all NFT transactions. In the statements made about this, the expressions “Almost all of the NFT market has been taken over by the so-called ‘whale'” were used and it was emphasized that the inequality in the NFT market was similar to the situation in the real economy.
In addition, in the research, it was stated that the ‘gas fee’ paid for transactions to be made over Ethereum is very high, and for this reason, only a few people, namely the ‘whale’, dominate the NFT market and cause inequality. In addition, experts noted that they are concerned about the possibility that the NFT market may be used for money laundering and market manipulation purposes.
Although such studies reveal that there are inequality and malicious people in the NFT market, as in the real world, NFTs continue to spread rapidly. The digitalization of the world day by day causes many people to see virtual assets such as NFT as the ‘future’ and want to be involved in this event.
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