In late 2017, several ICO offerings flooded the cryptocurrency space. Amid the frenzy, crypto critics warned of a bubble waiting to burst. Some likened the surrounding hype to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
As expected, some investors lost their funds to mouth-watering offers that turned out to be scams. Three years down the line, the attention has shifted from ICOs and DeFi has taken the center stage. More recently, non-fungible tokens have become the latest buzzword. Once again, critics have cried foul and warned on the ongoing craze.
Bruno Fruscalzo, President of NFT Inc., has said that the NFTs are very much like past manias, with a specific reference to the tulip mania.
In the 17th century, people went crazy over the sales of exotic flower bulbs, paying huge sums for the tulips. This was the first major financial bubble as prices dramatically collapse in February 1637. Fruscalzo explained:
I've studied past manias with a passion, and several of my growing collection (~$100k) of NFTs reference tulip mania. In fact, a currently very hot NFT series is Crypto Tulips… Yes, NFTs currently have a mania element and then some - God only knows how much bid-rigging and money laundering is going on.He goes on to explain that this was not a case peculiar to just the NFT market. The same odd practices exist in the arts industry, in the stock market, and even in political circles. However, despite its inherent shortcomings, the NFT curator and creator believes that NFTs will be part of the future. He expects the industry to evolve and find more use cases.
Those part of the online community surrounding NFTs find a positive, supportive scene that's the exact opposite of the toxic, divisive nature of the real world today, and the opportunities for creators across all mediums to collaborate, much less to finally have hope and to earn again after a year of lockdowns, is priceless.
