Whenever dictionaries, and other venerable publications, decide on the Word of the Year, it’s always designed to capture the zeitgeist of the 12 months just gone by. You can see this throughout the history of the selection: Web (1995), Y2K (1999), weapons of mass destruction (2002), app (2009), fake news (2017), pronouns (2019). When looking back, those words tell us what we were talking about at the time. As we say, they capture the zeitgeist.
So, what to say then about 2021’s choice from The Collings Dictionary – NFT. It’s an interesting one, mainly because it’s not exactly a mainstream phrase in the same vein as choice from years past. Ask your family to explain what ‘fake news’ is, and everyone will be able to give you a detailed explanation. Ask people about NFTs, and the most probable response is one of confusion.
For those now aware, an NFT is a non-fungible token. They have been called pieces of digital art, but that’s actually misleading. An NFT is more like a receipt that displays ownership for something digital. It could be anything – a meme, a tweet, a digital artwork, a video. Some NFTs trade for millions, whereas others trade for a few dollars.
NFT Remains a Niche Concept
But all of this remains fairly niche, even if NFTs do represent a billion-dollar industry. You are most likely to encounter NFTs in play-to-earn games, such as Axie Infinity. Games developers, including those considered mainstream, such as Ubisoft, have recognised there’s an appetite for play-to-earn and NFT-based games. They are pouring millions into the development of new titles, so expect to see some big-budget titles arrive soon.
Red Tiger Gaming, a slots developer, was also quick to see that people were interested in NFTs. It created NFT Megaways, which you can see among the mobile casino games at Genesis. While this game focuses on NFT branding (and not related to cryptocurrency), it’s still very popular and eye-catching, and it shows Red…
