Guest Post

What’s Holding the NFT Ecosystem Back on the Internet Computer?

The NFT ecosystem on the Internet Computer (IC) began with a lot of excitement and impressive projects such as BTC Flower, Poked Bots, Cosmicrafts, and more. Despite this promising start, the NFT ecosystem has been unable to sustain its initial momentum.

*This is a guest post by the Team at Goodmint

The NFT ecosystem on the Internet Computer (IC) began with a lot of excitement and impressive projects such as BTC Flower, Poked Bots, and more. There are marketplaces like Entrepot and Yumi, which are trying to accommodate a growing NFT fanbase on the IC. Despite this promising start, the NFT ecosystem has been unable to sustain its initial momentum.

The direness of the situation can be gauged by the declining social media numbers clocked in by various NFT projects in the ecosystem as a function of time. The same types of posts, be it on Twitter or Reddit, that were getting hundreds of upvotes are now getting a tenth of that response. The number of daily transactions on hitherto popular marketplaces also seems to have already peaked. These facts were enough to encourage our R&D team to investigate what went wrong and how we could reverse the situation.

Navigating NFT Adoption Challenges: Perspectives from the Internet Computer Community and beyond

We engaged in extensive discussions with a number of NFT artists who have already explored the IC ecosystem, as well as those who have chosen not to participate. We also consulted a variety of NFT collectors from the IC ecosystem, as well as from the ETH and SOL ecosystems, who expressed their reluctance to participate in the IC NFT landscape. While some sporadic views were presented, the general consensus among respondents was that there are three key challenges facing NFTs on the Internet Computer.

The NFT art may be aesthetically pleasing, but it currently lacks intrinsic value that would incentivize individuals to collect them.
The difficulty in acclimating to the IC ecosystem’s dapps may be a significant factor in deterring new collectors. Establishing an Internet Identity, navigating cryptographic domains, and transacting in cycles can be daunting for newcomers to IC.
A plateauing NFT fanbase within the ecosystem: the IC community is currently in its infancy, and is relatively small compared to say, ETH or even SHIB. Further, only a percentage of this community is interested in NFTs. This ends up making the current net-directed target audience (NDTA) extremely small. Moreover, there hasn’t been much growth owing to the bear market, and the springing of competing NFTs on newer chains like APT and OP.

Great news! We see each of these challenges as an exciting opportunity for growth and improvement. With this in mind, we created the GoodMint app at ICPverse Labs to tackle these issues head-on. Our app offers a simple solution that we’re eager to share more about in our upcoming article.

Each NFT-related action will lead to points, Good Points to be precise. These Good Points will be interchangeable and redeemable for prizes, giving inherent utility to each NFT project that GoodMint partners with.
The interface looks extremely web 2, and the only thing a newbie is expected to do is connect their ICP wallet. Other than that, it will totally feel like chilling out on a web 2 app. It’s extremely user-friendly, and the level of the steepness of the learning curve is purposely flattened not just to attract collectors from other ecosystems, but also NFT artists from elsewhere. Unless someone new gets interested in IC NFTs, we as an NFT ecosystem will stagnate, and hence GoodMint is extremely focused on bringing in new faces to the ecosystem.
We simplify entry to the IC Ecosystem for collectors and creators to attract new users and increase demand. Our Good Point system, Whitelist, and Giveaway events incentivize old and new members to participate, while built-in functions facilitate project collaboration and fanbase pooling

All in all, we strongly believe that the GoodMint app can serve as a starting point in reigniting the passion of the ICPeople for NFTs, and we will continue to research and add new features on a rolling basis. More details on what the GoodMint app does, and when it will be launched will be shared in our next article.