NFTs are popular across the globe as one-of-their-kind digital images that hold value. But the use cases of non-fungible and fungible tokens extend far beyond anyone’s comprehension. Token standards, real-world asset tokenization, tokenization of commodities, and many more are on the horizon; essentially, anything that can be tokenized will be tokenized in the future. The trick is to be ready for it.

To discuss the same and to impart his expert knowledge working at Polygon, Shivam Sharma (Blockchain Engineer) participated in a Twitter Tech Talk session hosted by Zeeve’s Karthik MS, and here’s how the session transpired.

Shivam starts by defining the characteristics of NFTs and Fungible tokens. How their ownership is secured on a blockchain, NFTs cannot be exchanged for anything, and how NFTs are digital assets that have guaranteed ownership. He then expounds on the lack of rarity in fungible tokens, as there are many of the same kind that aren’t exclusive. On the other hand, the ownership of a token ID is defined in the contract itself, which makes it unstoppable.

Answering the second question, Shivam shares details about token standards, starting with ERC20. In this standard, he mentions the functionality of pausing a token, burning tokens, and other options, followed by how he is interested in the superfluid concepts of streams. Next, he speaks about the ERC1155 standard, which was proposed by ENJIN, that is predominantly used in gaming. He wraps up the question by reiterating streams that can be used for subscription-based models.

Answering the third question, he mentions how transactions on a blockchain need to be indexed in a particular form of data that is easily accessible and readable: we have marketplaces for this reason.

In the next section, Shivam details e-ticketing and how issuing tickets at web3 events can be tokenized, which is a wonderful and inclusive idea and execution, followed by Decentralised EFTs, synthetic USD, fractional NFTs, and others.

He begins describing real-world asset tokenization in his next answer, starting with the tokenization of gold, how tokenizing physical things into digital things can open doors to various use scenarios, followed by fractional tokenization, and how users can own tokens like expensive shares in fractions rather than complete shares, in the form of token, and a lot more.

He then mentions how to avoid scams and rug pulls allegedly perpetrated by celebrities like Logan Paul with CryptoZoo, starting with learning how to read the whitepaper and smart contracts.

Speaking about interoperability and its importance in the NFT space, Shivam mentions how interoperability may be the weakest link in the blockCHAIN. He substantiates this claim by mentioning how bridges have been exploited by hackers and bad actors to cause, and as bridges are in a nascent stage, there is immense growth potential.

At last, he urges investors and others to check whose project they’re investing in, what problems it solves, how they are availing liquidity, do your own research, crunch all the numbers, look for protocol audit reports, and only then invest in NFT projects.