The world of non-fungible tokens represents a thriving new technology for valorizing our country’s cultural heritage, especially monuments, museums, and events.
Going beyond the huge speculation that is increasingly prevalent in the art, gaming, luxury, and “Collectibles” sectors (i.e., the famous collections of thousands of avatars such as Bored Ape Yatch Club or CryptoPunks), NFTs can be a revolutionary digital asset to stimulate tourist and cultural experiences, promote a territory, creating storytelling and gamification in favor of destination economies and local authorities.
In the very near future, NFTs will be a tool that will enter our daily lives, probably in a way that we cannot even imagine yet.
When, about twenty years ago, the Internet was used to chat with friends and do little else, we would never have imagined uses that have since become part of our daily lives. Our behaviors, while driving, eating, watching TV or listening to music, have profoundly changed.
Being always connected has consolidated habits that have become an integral and irreplaceable part of our daily lives: for example, we stopped calling each other, and we started communicating with voice messages and emojis on WhatsApp; we buy goods, shipped to our homes, comfortably sitting on our couch, choosing the supplier with the most positive reviews; or we plan vacations by being inspired by videos on YouTube.
Netflix, Spotify, Airbnb were not even an idea twenty years ago. But they have become the solution to a need or a problem as technology has brought new tools, new connections, new needs.
Beyond any ethical consideration – even shared ones – this is the reality we live in. Similarly, NFTs will also be the protagonists of a revolution that will have a significant impact on our habits, social and work relationships.
By purchasing an NFT, one shows their right of “possession” – but not ownership – of a digital asset and particular services that may be associated. All on a transparent and unhackable infrastructure: the blockchain. This is why we can finally experience the exclusivity and “scarcity” of digital content that, until now, has been characterized by free accessibility. In fact, it only takes one right-click to download them.
The decisive issue, from now on, will be the sectors of applicability: at the moment, in addition to a still-missing regulation, the only criticality I see is the little knowledge about the potential of these tools. After all, it is the nature of things that have just been born to be unfathomable. This creates little knowledge, but at the same time, great opportunities.
In the Public Administration sector, as a banal example, we can think of the creation of a limited edition collection of 3D renders of the monuments of one’s city, converted into Non-Fungible Tokens and sold at auction. The proceeds from the sale and the secondary market could be used for the conservation of the city’s cultural assets, or for redevelopment works, developing economic value to be allocated to such activities.
The Administration could acquire a virtual land on a platform like Decentraland (one of the most famous blockchain gaming platforms) and position the 3D assets within a “Metaverse” version of the city itself. The NFT owner would become the owner of the virtual monument. This would not only be a personal identity benefit but could be associated with some exclusive experiences in the real world: access to events, invitations to exhibitions, meetings in the cultural field, and much more.
But there’s much more: the city would make a very smart branding and visibility move, reaching out to generations that will soon spend a lot of time on these platforms. And there will be millions of people.
Who remembers how marketing managers of companies around the world reacted to the first Facebook? They completely ignored it. What was the point of joining a social network where people share and comment on photos?
But then we saw how it went.
Museums can rethink some commercial dynamics, which can give an important return to the economy and self-sustainability of the museum itself, perhaps by exploiting some rare pieces on display inside. The British Museum is auctioning limited editions of original works on display, such as Hokusai’s “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” (auctioned in September 2021) or some paintings by William Turner. In Italy, a success story is the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which sold an NFT derived from a work by Michelangelo for over 70,000 euros.
There can be many use cases that public administrations can benefit from using NFTs. A token economy can incentivize specific tourist and citizen behaviors, creating a system of rewards spendable in a network of municipal administrations. An example? Incentivizing active tourism in different locations, with rewards in NFTs that can activate cross-cutting benefits in all the entities that adhere to the initiative.
The POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) standard is a system that allows people to collect badge-NFTs, generating a list on their wallet (the wallet where the tokens we own are connected) with the list of experiences made. This is just an example of how a public administration can obtain the list of people who have participated in a certain number of activities, corresponding to the collection of badges.
Returning to the museum sector, we can think of gamification activities that activate an NFT ticketing system for all the museums in the city: by visiting the single museum and collecting digital tokens, the tourist is incentivized to complete a specific itinerary to obtain a prize, which could in turn be an NFT with its own resellability and value.
And so the city could organize historical, gastronomic, and cultural-themed treasure hunts, allowing the tourist to acquire tokens spendable in other activities.
Further collaboration with local artists and businesses could give rise to limited edition NFT collections, with an artistic value in themselves.
Seoul is perhaps the first global case of a city determined to use the Metaverse as a virtual communication ecosystem between administration and citizenship: 2.8 billion dollars invested by the South Korean capital to develop “Metaverse Seoul”.
Citizens, wearing virtual reality headsets, will have the opportunity to meet city officials in the form of avatars, to deal with complaints, participate in events, and civic consultations. This is perhaps the most important point: the virtual can actually improve some long-standing issues, such as long wait times in municipal offices, certification and document issuance, and the possibility of direct dialogue between the community and administrators. An opportunity to concretely reduce bureaucracy.
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