Olubunmi Fabanwo – Blockchain Evangelist/Moderator
Steven Koso – Founder, CEO Koso consult
Yerins Abraham – Ex BBN/CEO MetaArt Africa
Auwai Abdullahi – Board of Directors, Near Protocol Nigeria
Paul Ezeafuluke – Senior Business Development Manager with Bitget (Africa)
What is NFT, Metaverse? How they Apply in the Real Word/Fintech
Yerins was the first to share his thought on what NFTs is all about. According to him,
NFTs are tangible tokens and these tokens are used in the blockchain community. While metaverse on the other hand is a video reality in which people can interact and communicate. All these are embedded in the Web 3.
Therefore you need this blockchain to build a virtual reality and the needed facility to build a real system.
Buttressing this, Steven Koso, said “Metaverse is a virtual community like a room, recreating it virtually, while NFT is the tool that powers that particular space. For you to give a kind of value in the metaverse, NFTs help you to achieve that.”
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Why Have NFTs Balls Gone Down In Fintech
Answering this, Paul Ezeafuluke, Senior Business Development Manager with Bitget (Africa), said,
“There is always an hype that goes before an emerging technology. With hype comes a lot of bubbles. If you look at the entire system, one very interesting thing is the hype that went with the entire NFT ecosystem that has no intrinsic value.
It also came to the realization some of the NFTs sold had no utility and people bought them. It is just like a bragging right or personal value to the sellers. What they can do is create a utility around it and then make value.
So the real reason why this happened was that we build NFTs without any utility. So when it was at the peak of the hype, a lot of people bought them. When the hype eventually went down, it is the intrinsic value that holds the ecosystem. Without that, it goes down. First, let us build utility, and then we will see a arise”.
How Business Tap into The Metaverse World (The Economical Value)
Olubunmi Fabanwo giving his thought said,
“Metaverse platforms are beginning to add value to their products by hosting different courses. There is always a need to create value. Once there is value, the subscription is there already. If you look at Bitcoin and the reason it has gone far in business, it was because it met a particular need, which is the financial need of the ecosystem”.
Buttressing his point, Fabanwo made reference to Chuta who is making blockchain technology known and relevant in Nigeria. If you create value, you can never go unnoticed. Let’s try something out of the box other than the regular.
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How To Get Value out of the NFTs Space
Yerins speaking on how this works said,
“You must first understand what NFTs are and then connect them to whatever you are doing. You do not have to be all techie to go into the system, all you need to do is to focus on that particular field of yours and think of how you can create value.”
Adding to Yerin’s point, Fabanwo said: “Identify the need of people and create value for them through NFTs. Note that before you venture into that ecosystem, identify the key primary blockchain that you work with.”
Demerits of NTs And Metaverse (Where does regulation come in)
Answering to this Paul said there are a lot of disconnects, and a lack of empathy especially with remote jobs and this breeds depression. It also breeds so many unwanted characters.
Speaking to the health system and educational sector, Paul unarguably said, that they are utilities that can be very valuable to us in Nigeria. According to him, the money spent on these two industries is very expensive, and if spent here will help grow the economy if utilized well.
He also touched on the regulation. According to him, the space needs to be regulated to curb unwanted and false news spreading out of proportion. It will bring about sanity, safe and peaceful metaverse.
He ended by saying the safety, sanity, and peace of the metaverse is needed to be looked into. Everyone deserves a healthy space.
We however hope this is looked into and there is a healthy place for everyone.
The session ended with a group photo of the panelists
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