Findora made a good showing at NFT NYC and ETHNewYork this year. We had the privilege to talk to many exciting and innovative projects, and we’re looking forward to partnering with them going forward.

The City That Never Sleeps always leaves you with a lot to look back on, but here are our main takeaways:

Forecast Calls for SBTs

Soulbound tokens, or non-transferrable NFTs, look like they will be a big part of the NFT space going forward. They were certainly a hot topic among attendees at NFT NYC.

SBTs have many use cases because there are many financial applications in TradFi that aren’t transferable e.g. credit card numbers and bank accounts. SBTs mimick that utility.

SBTs may also play a huge role in identity verification. However, to safely do so, users will need to be able to selectively disclose only some information while keeping other data shielded. Users won’t want to reveal everything about themselves every time the token is used. Currently, there are no privacy solutions for SBTs, but the kind of selective disclosure they require is exactly what Findora can provide.

NFTs are Finding Their Utility

Apes, Lions, and Goblins are great…but we’re getting hyped out.

There were a lot of projects focusing on the less sexy applications of NFT technology like licensing. Other examples include:

Ticket verification
Wallet verification
Linking real assets to NFTs e.g. real estate, supercars, trading cards, etc.

Tokenproof, 0xmoon.io, and Chainpass are good examples of projects working hard to make NFTs useful as passes at events.

There is a lot of creativity and imagination in the space as projects race to be the first to implement a new NFT use case.

NFTs are evolving from shiny collections to real-world applications; it’s a sign of the space maturing. We’re excited to see how NFTs will evolve and how they can change the day-to-day lives of people around the world.

ZK Privacy Is Getting More Popular

There were other zero-knowledge projects present, and while they may not be as far along as Findora is, their presence signals a general interest in ZK technology and privacy for NFTs. It’s increasingly recognized that privacy is a necessary feature of any financial or blockchain system, and there was a lot of interest in Findora events.

Despite short notice, our ZK-Bistro event was a huge success. We were able to meet many exciting teams looking to integrate ZK technology into their projects and who were interested in the Findora Foundation grant program. We’re excited for the partnerships that will come out of it.

Warren Paul Anderson, CEO of Discreet Labs, gave a talk on the importance of privacy noting that privacy doesn’t not equal secrecy. Secrecy means never revealing information. Privacy implies you want to reveal information — but only to those who need to know.

He observed that major brands like Apple are launching campaigns to promote privacy and that Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever or whatever he is, most likely wanted bitcoin to be private but didn’t have the technological ability to accomplish it.

But with the introduction of zero-knowledge proofs, on-chain privacy on public ledgers is possible.

Warren Paul Anderson giving a talk on privacy at NYC NFT

A number of projects came up to him after his talk to understand how they could integrate Findora’s privacy tech for things like private payroll and protecting simple payments.

“Wen Regulatory Clarity?”

There was a lot of talk about future securities regulations and how to prepare for them. L1s, like Findora, will need to self-regulate and make it clear to users and regulators what their tokens are for.

They’ll also need to make sure user data and IDs are protected.

Smart contractors will likely be licensed the same way building contractors or insurance agents are licensed now. There will be some sort of licensing board that allows teams to go from project to project writing smart contracts.

Teams Need Better Documentation

Deploying NFTs isn’t necessarily complicated, but that doesn’t make it easy. There were a number of issues during the ETHNewYork Hackathon that showed basic documentation is still needed when talented teams couldn’t fix bugs.

Projects need to make sure their documentation is in order and easy to follow.

Findora has some of the best documentation in the Zk space (you can find our NFT documentation here) but it can always be better. Please feel free to join our Discord and make suggestions on how we can improve in the future.

We got a lot of feedback on what hackers want at a hackathon and hacker house and we have some exciting plans in the works for the next crypto convention!

Looking Ahead

NFTs will be a big part of the future and the space in 5 years won’t look anything like it does today. But no one really can predict the future…that’s a big takeaway from 2022 in general.

One of our biggest takeaways is that energy is still high even if markets are low. Many projects are exploring NFT use cases and building solutions. They’re looking ahead, not looking back.

Projects are working to integrate NFTs into the legal system and onboard them with institutions. Coding is the easy part; projects are now solving for the human factor, starting the long, hard process of adoption.

Privacy will be a big part of that adoption process because it is an essential function that institutions and individuals require. We’re excited to keep building in the space with teams from all around the world.