Animoca Manufacturers co-founder and government chair Yat Siu believes {that a} resurgence within the NFT sector may push Ethereum to all-time highs, surpassing its earlier peak in the course of the 2021 bull run.
In a July 21 publish on X, Siu highlighted the historic relationship between Ethereum’s worth and NFT market exercise. He famous that Ethereum final hit its all-time excessive of round $4,800 in November 2021, the height of the NFT increase.
Since then, each Ethereum and the broader NFT sector have confronted a protracted downturn.
Nevertheless, indicators of a revival are rising, with blue-chip NFT collections like CryptoPunks not too long ago seeing double-digit ground worth beneficial properties. The whole NFT market capitalization has surpassed $10 billion and is steadily approaching its 2021 excessive of $15.6 billion.
This sector uptrend has additionally coincided with Ethereum crossing the $3,800 mark for the primary time since December 2024.
NFTs as cultural gadgets
Contemplating this, Siu believes that ETH’s worth may rise if the group faucets into NFTs as cultural gadgets to be embraced fairly than considered solely as monetary devices.
He argued that NFTs embody id, social standing, and group belonging, which drive actual financial worth.
Siu acknowledged that NFT buying and selling has change into more and more fragmented throughout completely different blockchains. In accordance with him, Ethereum’s dominance within the sector has dipped, now accounting for lower than half of all NFT buying and selling quantity when excluding Layer 2 networks.
Regardless of the fragmentation, Siu sees Ethereum’s cultural affect as a long-term benefit. He in contrast the cultural function of NFTs to luxurious manufacturers akin to Hermès and Rolex, that are valued for symbolism fairly than utility.
He said:
“You don’t purchase a Birkin bag to place stuff in it simply as a lot as you don’t purchase a Rolex to inform the time. NFTs signify the cultural, social and symbolic energy of a group.”
He additionally emphasised ETH’s distinctive function as a spending token, not like Bitcoin, which he described as rooted in a “HODL” tradition. In accordance with him:
“ETH is a utility token and holding it’s for the chance to have interaction in one thing vital i.e to spend akin to in DeFi, some token and sure additionally NFTs. That is additionally the rationale why ETH rising is bullish on-chain as a result of we spend not like BTC customers whose tradition is infinite HODL.”
Contemplating this, he urged Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to embrace NFTs as monetary property and pillars of Ethereum’s cultural financial system.
He burdened:
“NFTs are the spine of the Ethereum cultural financial system way more than simply monetary, it’s about tradition, standing and finally belonging.”
