Aly Madhavji, managing director at Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF), explained the perks and pitfalls of NFTs during the latest installment of Valhalla Private Capital’s Ask An Expert series, which discussed Web3, the metaverse and its impacts on investors and startups alike.
Speaking with
Mark Mitchell, Edmonton Chapter President at Valhalla Private Capital,
Dhawal Shah, co-founder of
Frontier; and Jeffrey Manner, general partner at
Weave VC; Ali discussed the manner in which NFTs “made having a internet based decentralized currency possible” through bringing together four decades of crypto-based research
“Even though it was outlined as being a currency originally, it's really slowly moved into a value type asset that is backed by energy,” Ali remarked.
Hailing NFTs as “the first way to be able to track ownership of anything in a digital world”, the BFF managing director compared a lack of digital ownership to being unable to track ownership of property.
On the topic, he elaborated: “If [someone said] 'we might not be able to track ownership rights of your home', you'd find it archaic.
“It hinders growth from every aspect. In 20 years,” Aly continued, “we're gonna look back and say 'how did we not think that everything needed to be tracked in it in a digital world?'”
While digital ownership is considered “ essence of NFTs” by Aly, he also warned that those interested should “be careful in terms of what [they’re] getting involved in”.
These issues include identifying who owns underlying IPs, images and likeness of celebrities and other cultural points of interest.
“You've got challenges of major corporations selling NFT's that don't essentially include rights, all the way to companies taking photos of something very unique or rare, and the precedents of how that actually relates to ownership.
“But it's the future. We have to be able to track digital ownership,” Aly concluded.
‘Ask An Expert’ contributor Dhawal also discussed the role of DeFi in supporting Ukraine during the event.
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