NFTs 간단히 설명 – 2025년에 실제로 일어나고 있는 일은?

Source: Dev.to

Welcome back to the 60‑Day Web3 Journey. This is Day 11. So far you’ve gone from “What is blockchain?” and “Why was Bitcoin a big deal?” to understanding Ethereum as a programmable blockchain, wallets and gas, smart contracts, and finally DeFi—where code replaces banks for trading, lending, and earning. Yesterday’s DeFi article showed how smart contracts can move billions of dollars without a traditional bank in sight.

Today we stay with the same building block (smart contracts) but switch the use case: ownership, not just money. That’s where NFTs come in.

A lot of people say “NFTs are dead.” The truth in 2025 is more nuanced: the speculation bubble around cartoon JPEGs popped, but some very specific NFT use cases quietly kept going and even grew. This article stays neutral—no hype, no funeral—just what NFTs are and where they actually make sense now.

What Is an NFT, Really?

NFT stands for non‑fungible token.

• Token: A record on a blockchain that says “this wallet owns X”.
• Non‑fungible: Each token is unique, not interchangeable 1:1 like money.
• Smart contract: The piece of code that defines the rules for those tokens—who owns what, how transfers work, what metadata is attached.

If a fungible token (like ETH or USDC) is like a dollar bill—every unit is the same—then an NFT is like a concert ticket with your seat printed on it. Both are pieces of paper, but one is interchangeable and one isn’t.

Technically, an NFT is:

• A smart contract (e.g., ERC‑721 or ERC‑1155 on Ethereum) deployed to a blockchain.
• A token ID inside that contract that maps to an owner address and metadata (image, traits, ticket info, etc.).

The NFT itself is the on‑chain entry in the contract that points to some data. The picture or asset can be on IPFS, Arweave, or even a centralized server. The contract + token ID is what you truly “own”.

What Actually Happened to NFTs After the Hype?

The 2021–2022 cycle was dominated by:

• Profile picture (PFP) collections.
• Massive trading volumes.
• Floor prices driven more by speculation than by actual utility.

Then the market corrected hard. Global monthly NFT trading volume fell from tens of billions in 2021 to well under a billion in some months of 2023–2024. Many collections went to near‑zero and mainstream interest moved on.

By 2025, the picture is more mixed:

• Overall trading volumes are far below the peak, but no longer in freefall.
• A few blue‑chip collections still have active communities and liquidity.
• The “mint anything and flip it tomorrow” meta is mostly dead.

Utility‑focused NFTs—gaming items, tickets, loyalty passes—are growing as separate, quieter categories.

So if by “NFTs” you mean the speculative PFP casino, then yes, a lot of it is dead. If you look at NFTs as a tool for digital ownership and access, the story is different.

Real NFT Use Cases in 2025 (Beyond JPEGs)

1. Gaming Items and In‑Game Assets

In Web3 games, NFTs represent:

• Characters, skins, weapons, land, or other in‑game items.
• Assets that can be traded on open marketplaces instead of being locked inside one company’s database.

Why this matters

• Well‑designed items can be sold or transferred even if the original game shuts down.
• Some ecosystems experiment with interoperability: using the same NFT across multiple games or experiences.

Gaming already had digital items with real emotional and monetary value; NFTs mostly change how they’re owned and traded.

2. Tickets and Access Passes

NFTs are increasingly used as:

• Event tickets for concerts, sports, conferences.
• Membership and access passes for DAOs, online communities, and clubs.

Why organizers care

• Harder to forge than PDFs or screenshots.
• Easy to verify at the door with a wallet scan.
• Secondary markets can be tracked, and in some ecosystems creators can enforce royalties on resales (depending on marketplace and chain support).

By 2025 there are live pilots and products using NFT ticketing for festivals, sports events, and Web3 conferences, with some platforms reporting reduced fraud and better tracking of resales.

3. Loyalty, Rewards, and Token‑Gated Commerce

Brands are using NFTs as:

• Loyalty passes that unlock discounts, perks, or early access.
• Token‑gated commerce, where only NFT holders can buy certain products or access private storefronts.

Examples

• A coffee chain issues NFT loyalty cards that upgrade as you hit spending milestones.
• A fashion brand drops limited‑edition items only accessible if your wallet holds a specific NFT.

Here the NFT isn’t about “collectible art”; it’s a programmable access key sitting in your wallet.

4. Certificates, Identity, and Collectibles

Other emerging uses include:

• Certificates for course completions and on‑chain credentials.
• Proof‑of‑attendance tokens (POAPs) for events and conferences.
• Digital collectibles tied to physical products (e.g., buying a sneaker and receiving a matching NFT to prove authenticity).

These aren’t speculative investments; they’re new formats for receipts, badges, and mementos.

Are NFTs Dead or Just Different?

To stay neutral, separate the hype era from the infrastructure.

Where NFTs Clearly Failed

• As a guaranteed investment class that “always goes up”.
• As a universal tool for speculation across any random picture collection.
• As a shortcut for projects with weak fundamentals to raise large amounts of money.

Most 2021–2022 PFP collections are illiquid or near worthless. Many promised metaverses, airdrops, and lifetime perks that never materialized.

Where NFTs Are Quietly Working

• Gaming ecosystems where digital items already had meaning and NFTs simply give them tradability and ownership outside a single platform.
• Ticketing and access, where NFT‑based passes help with verification and resale tracking.
• Loyalty and memberships, where NFTs act as programmable keys and dynamic membership cards.
• Enterprise and infrastructure contexts, where companies treat NFTs as a generic standard for unique digital assets rather than speculative products.

Market data in 2025 supports this split:

• Overall NFT market cap and volume are much lower than 2021 highs, but not zero, with signs of stabilization and modest recovery in some segments.
• Gaming, utility, and ticketing NFTs show more consistent growth compared to pure art/PFP collections.
• Institutional focus has shifted more toward DeFi and real‑world assets, but NFTs remain a part of the broader Web3 stack, especially where unique digital objects are needed.

Connecting Back to Your Journey

For your 60‑day series, you can frame NFTs like this:

• Day 8–9: You deployed a simple smart contract and saw that it can store and manage unique tokens.
• Day 11: You explore how those tokens can represent ownership, access, and real‑world value beyond speculative art.

Continue building on this foundation as you move toward more advanced Web3 applications.