Non-Fungible Tokens Value with Metaverse and Blockchain Gaming

Non-Fungible Tokens Value with Metaverse and Blockchain Gaming A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Computer Science by William Mcilhargey Jr Department of Doctoral Studies, Colorado Technical University November 2021 Committee Members Alexa Schmitt, PhD, Chair Jeffrey Butler, PhD, Committee Member Cynthia Calongne, DCS, Committee Member ii Abstract Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) had shown significant hype since 2021 and had gained popularity as a way to trade value as an asset. The study opportunity was to investigate NFTs within the blockchain platform to identify how adding utility and combining the utility inside a metaverse would hold the value of NFTs. This qualitative exploratory study investigated how NFTs can be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. This research study examined the NFTs and reviewed how they could be developed into something useful. The monetization of new markets was an underlying question that was researched as part of this study to determine if they could be created and if there was an effective way to influence utility to generate value. An exploratory research design was used to survey 50 respondents to uncover concepts from blockchain to metaverse research. The results aligned with the perspective that NFTs appeared not to follow what a traditional asset would stick to. Based on the findings, NFTs could create new markets and entice demand by relying on unique and limited characteristics defined throughout this research. Keywords: non-fungible token, metaverse, blockchain, games, qualitative study iii Acknowledgments I want to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able to complete this research and without whom I would not have made it through my doctorate! My research supervisor, Dr. Alexa Schmitt, was essential to completing my dissertation and ensured my success by keeping me on track to complete my dissertation and all the help with the revisions to the dissertation. Without her continued efforts, I would not have met my requirements to complete the program, and thank you again for all the hard work and help to push me to complete the study! Also, to Microsoft for providing the flexibility and resources while I was on the journey of working towards my degree and heads down focused on the research. Also, the DEEPSPACE community for participating in the study, providing insights to drive the research discussed, and providing future research. And to my parents, Kathy and Bill, for all the support and encouragement driving me to continue my education, supporting me in my initiatives, and encouraging me to obtain my degrees. I have finally reached the terminal degree and can take a break! And finally, to my wife, Linsey, thanks for all your support during the journey, without which I would have stopped these studies long ago. Thank you for understanding the amount of time this would take to complete the program, and looking forward to sharing the extra time back with each other! iv Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Study Opportunity .............................................................................................................. 2 Study Purpose ..................................................................................................................... 3 Research Question .............................................................................................................. 5 Conceptual Framework ....................................................................................................... 5 Significance of the Study ..................................................................................................... 8 Researcher Positionality and Reflexivity ............................................................................. 9 Delimitations and Limitations ........................................................................................... 10 Definition of Terms ........................................................................................................... 11 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature ............................................................................................. 14 Literature Search Strategies.............................................................................................. 14 Metaverse and NFT Blockchain Concepts......................................................................... 16 Trusted System Review ..................................................................................................... 17 Decentralization Risks ....................................................................................................... 20 Sequencing and Transactional Considerations ................................................................. 21 Technological Advances on the Platform ......................................................................... 23 Implementation of the Blockchain Framework ................................................................ 24 Authentication and Security ............................................................................................. 25 NFT Centralization Risk & Mitigation Strategies ............................................................... 27 Metaverse Vision .............................................................................................................. 29 v Data Interconnecting ........................................................................................................ 31 Media Attention ................................................................................................................ 33 ERC-721 ............................................................................................................................. 33 Gaps in the Literature ....................................................................................................... 34 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 35 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 3: Methodology, Design, and Methods .......................................................................... 38 Research Methodology and Design .................................................................................. 39 Population, Sample, and Participant Recruitment ........................................................... 40 Data Collection Instrumentation and Procedures ............................................................ 42 Data Analysis and Procedures ........................................................................................... 44 Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................ 45 Ethical Assurances ............................................................................................................. 47 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................. 48 Chapter 4: Findings ....................................................................................................................... 50 Description of the Study Sample ...................................................................................... 50 Results ............................................................................................................................... 52 Discussion of Study Findings ............................................................................................. 57 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................. 59 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusions ........................................................................................ 61 Limitations of Study Findings ............................................................................................ 62 Interpretation of Study Findings ....................................................................................... 63 vi Practice Implications of Study Findings ............................................................................ 66 Researcher Reflections ..................................................................................................... 67 Recommendations for Further Research .......................................................................... 69 Recommendation 1 ........................................................................................................... 69 Recommendation 2 ........................................................................................................... 70 Recommendation 3 ........................................................................................................... 71 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 71 References .................................................................................................................................... 75 Appendix A: Survey Questions ...................................................................................................... 95 vii List of Figures Figure 1 Conceptual Framework of NFT Ecosystem for Creating Value within a Metaverse 8 Figure 2 Comparing Experience Interacting with NFTs and Participant’s Age 52 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) had shown significant hype since 2021 and had been around on the blockchain to store value and represent a digital asset; (Pinto-Gutiérrez et al., 2022). The hype had a way to build and demonstrated potential monetization with the release of NFT marketplaces allowing the easy buying, selling, and transferring of NFT ownership data by capturing NFT metadata and then provided a frictionless yield of digital assets. As with every way of storing value, the method in the digital world was also vulnerable to exploitation. Blockchain technology power came from transparency and was empowered by the timestamps and cryptography it provides (Rajguru, 2021). A foolproof peer-to-peer network ensured transparency without a middle-man agency overseeing the process, which further empowered the process. This further accelerated the use of gaming within the blockchain, where decentralized applications could be further expanded and allowed for decentralized voting to take effect. To prevent one entity from running an entire platform, decentralized, autonomous applications allowed a community to run an entire platform which were free from the control and interference of a single authority. These decentralized applications were an emerging application model that would be further expanded over the next 10 years and could provide a bridge to bring new initiatives, such as gaming models to the blockchain, on a decentralized path (Antal et al., 2021). A decentralized application could ensure anonymity, community buyin, and transacting data and structure privacy. One key area in business in these decentralized environments would be getting the business rules to work with the transactions and apply the concepts as part of the overall processes (Subramanian et al., 2020). Blockchain could facilitate 8 Figure 1 Conceptual Framework of NFT Ecosystem for Creating Value within a Metaverse. Note. The conceptual framework focused on a gaming blockchain ecosystem with a lens on the metaverse and non-fungible tokens dynamics. Significance of the Study This study was significant as it was an original contribution to NFTs and blockchain technology, focusing on utility. NFTs have become a popular commodity; for example, from 2020 to 2021, the NFT market went from $181,121 to well over $38 million in 2021 in total daily sales (Pinto-Gutiérrez et al., 2022). Still, the utility NFTs were the ones that would further see the value from now on in monetization, and further research should additionally provide these or disprove this. It was essential to understand as these areas were researched and built to 9 understand how NFTs could be further impacted by the result of useless or valuable daily projects, attempting to gain users’ attention on a massive scale. Researcher Positionality and Reflexivity Since 2012, one of my interests and passions had been researching blockchain technologies. Blockchain technology was a decentralized technology based on computing power that allowed verified transactions to occur based on untrusted events within an event (Bhargava, 2019a, 2019b). The idea was that these technologies could be industry-wide, turn the course on what would be possible, and revamp many industries with how transactions occur. The provided framework had proven to work in many situations; it also covered other conditions, such as environmental impact, depending on the incentives one tried to target as part of these events. Finally, the recent introduction to expanding the framework to include new standards such as ERC-721, NFTs, had also caused a massive explosion due to these new capabilities. As the industry continued to adopt these new technologies, all the applications that could be used also remain to be seen. One industry, such as the gaming industry, were jumping on board, and some platforms, such as Binance, are investing over $1 billion in growth money into the ecosystem. (Chain, 2022). There was a massive opportunity in this space, and everyone was early who joined, as it was only just beginning. The research topic aimed to research how NFTs could be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. NFTs have become a significant hit as of 2021, so much so that they were the year's word during 2021 (voanews, 2021). The plan behind NFTs was a piece of property or a smart contract on the blockchain that, ideally, no one else has, creating a unique collection. It is one type of event that has occurred and had only ever been 10 minted once, and that was all there ever was. Recently, there was a picture of a monkey (BAYC, 2022) or an access token to an exclusive event. One unique area I was researching with a topic of using NFTs within the metaverse and using them as a brilliant, upgradeable asset within this ecosystem. NFTs, once minted, could never be touched. Their attributes or properties cannot be modified or connected; however, a new concept of smart or upgradeable NFTs was being experimented with, making the idea inaccurate in the context (Huang, 2021). My biggest strengths as a researcher were experience and an active project that I had worked on with a team of members for over a year in this field. By leveraging industry experience and using live data, I could bring this to the models and paper to further add credibility and real-life data analysis to define further and model expectations. Overall, the space was still new and being developed, and there was a lot of opportunity for research and development in the areas due to this continued research. To mitigate any potential bias I could bring to my study, and I would follow appropriate research methods for data collection and analysis to reveal the findings of participants. I would practice reflexivity and look to the literature to further analyze the study findings. Delimitations and Limitations The research within this space covers the blockchain and the metaverse facets within constrained limitations and, as a result, were constrained to a particular vision. The scope further focused on the utility in fashion and how it could interact with marketing, gaming, and the economic impact of the interoperability of these components. The limitations in this study were focused on not going beyond the mentioned boundaries and, as such, would disregard other types of NFTs outside the ERC-721 standard 11 and not on the standard OpenSea trading platform. By ensuring a consistent and trading platform that would be analyzed and reviewed, these boundaries could be further limited to a focused research topic and thereby obtain a more focused address to the research topic. Going to non-standards or new standards and off-marketplaces could curve the results and provide too many variables that would skew the results of the NFT values, which would further result in ineffective data and inaccurate results in the research process. In the blockchain, anyone could create a contract, whether it would follow a standard or not, as long as it followed the correct code for the particular blockchain. As long as the marketplace, or a custom marketplace, was created to read the blockchain and present the data, then the digital assets could be displayed to the end-users. Following the standards made it easier for transferability and interoperability across digital wallets and standardized tools and marketplaces as those are more likely to be able to display and work with end-users. Definition of Terms The terms within the research study were included to define how they are used and included and incorporated to help the readers better understand the core concepts, technology, focus, and scope of the research study relating to the topics. The key terms were further defined to align with the current industry knowledge and aspects of current trends and recent research performed. Blockchain The blockchain was an irrefutable transaction store that holds the historical data and data across solutions. This was a part of an overall connected infrastructure that could handle the paradigm between the answers for this to work (Risius, 2017). 12 Metaverse The metaverse was an exciting topic that was still highly debated, and the current definitions are an immense three-dimensional world where avatars could interact (Davis et al., 2009). This was also being discussed highly on what this looks like and how it interconnects across social media and social gameplay. Non-Fungible Tokens NFTs relied on the blockchain to transact. Still, they were the front interface of the avatars that were part of the metaverse and work closely with these together (Pinto-Gutiérrez et al., 2022), using NFTs as a form of property to transact between players and present into avatars and profiles. Smart Contract Smart Contracts were automated processes that occur on a blockchain that could facilitate a transfer of a digital asset or good (Francesca Dal et al., 2020). Decentralized Finance Decentralized Finance (DeFi) describes financial applications built on blockchain technologies. The inherent trust was the underlying capability where it was put into the hands of the consumers and allowed them to transact between each other and only with each other (Ojog, 2021). Utility Utility is the concept of intangible tokens and could be fungible or non-fungible assets representing access to a product or service and serving as a paying function (Paajala et al., 2022). 13 Chapter Summary Gaming in the metaverse offered a unique perspective with NFTs. Throughout the chapter, the topics covered the unique opportunities within the space that were researched throughout the paper to better understand how they interact and depend upon each other. NFTs could provide more value when utility was added, and as they do, they give a method for stored value. They act as a digital asset and potentially cause fear of missing out on an opportunity for the customer. Within the next section of the study, the literature review delves into the bigger topics and terms reviewed and discussed throughout the study. The evidence displayed as part of the research could help reinforce the background of what has been collected and would be presented in later sections. 14 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to investigate how NFTs could be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. The research study would examine this new space and better understand how this could be reviewed to be developed into something useful. For example, NFTs could be used in a game world to connect users to ingame experiences, representing metaverse interactions with NFTs or SFTs. The study opportunity was to investigate NFTs within the blockchain platform to identify how adding utility and combining the utility inside a metaverse would hold the value of NFTs (Davis et al., 2009). The concept of loading NFTs inside the metaverse could arrive by big players allowing more affordable and accessible access options over time (Valeonti et al., 2021). The metaverse interconnects between the blockchain and NFTs, providing value to the customers using the connected platforms to provide utility. By providing a utility to the NFTs, there could be an underlying market demand increasing the buying pressure and value to the general concept of the gaming platform. Throughout this research, the following topics would be covered, Literature Search Strategies, Metaverse, and NFT Blockchain Concepts Trusted System Review, Decentralization Risks, Sequencing, and Transactional Considerations, Technological Advances on the Platform, Implementation of the Blockchain Framework, Authentication and Security, Qualitative Review, Metaverse Vision, Data Interconnecting, and Media Attention. Literature Search Strategies Blockchain frameworks and methodologies were a relatively newer concept, and research was exploding in blockchain technologies, NFTs, and, more recently, Metaverse 15 technology. These concepts have exploded in public internet searches, and researchers have begun to pick up upon these over the years to dig into them to see what they are made up of. Blockchain platforms were one key term used to help identify scholarly articles. Another critical reference was searching for cryptocurrency NFT to search for hits on related technology and discussions that have been peer-reviewed. Another key opportunity for research was metaverse and looking through articles related to these topics. Finding resources related to these terms was critical to finding relevant and timely research to build a case for the analysis. In addition, blockchain trust and oracles were used to identify areas of interest in critical segments relating to compromise and alignment. One database search that was used was the Computer Science Database in ProQuest, where significant search terms were used when digging through these literature cases were, Blockchain platforms, Blockchain identity, Blockchain applications, decentralization platforms, bitcoin blockchain, cryptocurrency effects, enterprise platforms, blockchain, non-fungible tokens, NFTs and blockchain, metaverse, regulations and blockchain, blockchain analysis, blockchain immutability, blockchain smart city. The scholarship keywords and phrases were also used to identify the ACM Digital Library to help review additional resources where blockchain identity and blockchain cryptocurrency terms were used. Reviewing other words such as monetization cryptocurrency and marketing NFTs helped find critical articles relating to open markets on cryptocurrency and research within the blockchain space relevant to this research. Having reviewed the search terms and critical criteria covering NFTs, blockchain resources, and metaverse conversations, one must now investigate the literature review to 16 understand the metaverse and NFT concepts and the relevant research associated with these components. Metaverse and NFT Blockchain Concepts Utilizing the metaverse components within the research criteria was essential due to the areas that understand these components. Using the metaverse and transmedia storytelling was becoming a popular way to expand upon engaging the audience of gamers to engage in this space (İldaş, 2022). By utilizing digital passports and traveling the world, one could quickly engage the audience to make the buyer feel part of the universe rather than just seeing the universe. Bringing the metaverse to the blockchain was an additional concept that overcomes a different challenge of getting a decentralized world for gamers to interact with while inside this alternate world. By decentralizing the metaverse and putting it on top of a blockchain, a gaming metaverse could further impact the gamers by providing an immersive virtual space and experience that would allow for virtual commerce, application design, and interactivity (Shen et al., 2021). Virtual exchanges could further facilitate in-game purchases such as NFTs to produce utility to these assets on the blockchain to expand in-game transactions and use for in-game help. The concept chart in Chapter 1 further informed the study of the key stakeholders and industry terms used to connect the components and bring the study together. As demonstrated in Figure 1 of Chapter 1, it was essential to understand how the dimensions work together. Blockchain technology was an immutable ledger of records that could be sliced up into portions and given as a value, for example, Bitcoin. It could be coded to execute automatic transactions on the network, such as Ethereum, which would allow for tying assets as a record of ownership, 17 for example, NFTs (Cornelius, 2021). The concept of further establishing NFTs, making them a source of truth, and then tying them to a metaverse would additionally allow these pieces to be linked together. The historical details of transactions on the network that miners maintain allowed for a consensus of trust to occur, allowing the contracts to be further executed and evolve (L. Wang et al., 2021). An ERC-721 was a framework created for Ethereum blockchain where a unique asset could have a different value from the same contract (Palmisano et al., 2022). Implementing a well-architected ERC-721 standard for NFT tokens could ensure consistency across the platform and data interoperability, allowing the digital assets to be valuable and transactive on the platforms (Palmisano et al., 2022). The support could be used for tickets, gaming, or digital art to establish a marketplace to transact further and communicate between a buyer and a seller to establish a relationship (Caldarelli, 2022). The economy could be further exploited depending on the buyer or seller, which could be leveraged depending on the asset's value in the future. Trusted System Review As with any trusted system, trust must be earned, especially in a new given technology that was meant to be overridden. Blockchain and trust could be had hand-in-hand, but it had to be explicitly granted due to direct conviction (Liu, 2019). The underlying belief of the model must be inherently trustworthy and represented. As a result, otherwise, the model broke down quickly, whereas, in the traditional model, banks and regulated industries' trust was relied upon in those models. In contrast, if trust broke down in those models, then the same occurrence would happen in these models (Li et al., 2021). User perception was also crucial to the system's trust; inherently, a blockchain-based system would be accepted if it was seen as trustworthy, 24 technologies (Clohessy & Acton, 2019). The evaluation and decision of which technologies and frameworks work with each other depends on the technical capabilities and the modeling (Fremantle & Scott, 2017). Implementation of the Blockchain Framework As an example of the working system, a Smart City was similarly developed as part of a qualitative model. The smart city concept was to improve the life quality of a city by reusing inactive resources. The blockchain further established credibility and tamper resistance by providing intelligent contract organization to prevent and reduce risks as part of a Smart City methodology (Huang, 2021). When developing a smart city, for example, intelligent city application components could also decentralize data through a blockchain to further verify and approve changes and allow them to propose changes and corrections accordingly (Rotună, 2019). These components suggested change as part of an adjustment to the processes that further accelerated an overall strategy and proved a working model of the methods. A smart city could adapt and grow to enhance these components further and expand upon critical demonstrated systems by working off the blockchain methodology and provide inherent value through using private contracts, basically NFTs. The practical implications of a blockchain network inside a universe such as this were the lack of transparency and decentralization (Clohessy & Acton, 2019). The blockchain framework further expanded upon the topologies. It was extensible, such as offering the ability to build the Internet of Medical Things as a gaming platform to build deep learning models (Wu et al., 2020). Scalability issues occured as the number of nodes increases, representing a tradeoff of this system's performance and substance (Khan et al., 2021). The purpose of the miners 25 was to ensure a fair and trusted environment in a decentralized area. Allowing them to process transactions at a fee gives incentives to process (Zamani & Giaglis, 2018). The affordance of variables further constrains the blockchain due to the capabilities of the framework provided by the miners (Rossi et al., 2019). Authentication and Security Authentication and session management were vital components when working across an NFT, metaverse, and blockchain system. Identifying and tracking a user and their session across the lifecycle was essential to the defined overall plan. As part of creating inherent value and having a particular outcome, identity could become lost or stolen and easily misplaced, especially in refugee situations, where digital identity and tracking could be accomplished to ensure greater traceability (Button, 2018). Having traceable identities, for example, could further prove if someone is who they say they are and provide proven ability of ownership of a particular wallet containing NFTs— proving the concepts of a hierarchical identity layer and how these identity layers would overlap. For example, ensuring a user's proper identity could then inform the processes across a system to mention what the user owns and then, as part of those ownership, detail how they would interact with what the user could potentially hold from what the user acknowledges, what additional value could be further added as a result. Policy-based templating could help lockdown to standards and better ensure negligence does not occur on the network due to malicious actors (Fang et al., 2021). Record keeping as part of NFTs was not included as the contracts are adjusted accordingly, and the document standards are too vague to address (Cornelius, 2021). 26 In addition to reviewing the authenticity of a connection, checks and balances must be input to ensure further established processes. When using a decentralized application (dApp), oracles could help provide a centralized source of truth from trusted third parties who then bring data to these unverified channels to help ensure the proper trust of the data (Caldarelli & Ellul, 2021). Oracles also have a significant responsibility in correctly executing contracts, guaranteeing the right information goes into the right places. Otherwise, they are responsible for triggering if attempts to put the wrong information into the wrong places result from an attempted attack or misconfiguration (Caldarelli & Ellul, 2021). This is where the Oracles could issue refunds and credits to offset these mistakes further. Without these checks, though, malicious users could mint and abuse the system to go around the procedures to do what was not intended. Oracles were further set up to certify and be the authenticity of the data at a cost to the end-user (Gatteschi, 2018). While costing a minimal amount, these checks could be there for the greater good of the whole working part. Ensuring the transition of technologies and designing it properly must ensure they flow properly to prove further. AI-based performance was also a check to ensure these applications post unique and constrained challenges. Reviewing the impact these have on users was essential, and vetting through the blockchain, this impact could be further investigated (Badsha et al., 2021; Islam et al., 2021). Digital technologies and improved connectivity are crucial to overcoming obstacles in industries where centralization has become the norm (Tanaka & Evans, 2020). Blockchains were often referred to as the primary innovation and potential to disrupt many industries. This was no different from the metaspace universe and gaming platforms (Clohessy & Acton, 2019). The 27 lifecycle of the approaches were further revaluated by reviewing the properties of a contract and then declaring what were needed to confirm these contracts on the chain (Governatori et al., 2018). An IPFS system could also be reviewed as part of an interconnected system to further connect in a decentralized hosting viewing of images and assets across a blockchain approach (Karbasi & Shahpasand, 2020). The growing impact on the blockchain was further proof of the smart contracts and exploited capabilities that could be provided to provide algorithmic computations to further leverage and educate as part of ensuring a trusted and advanced platform (Ciatto et al., 2020) NFT Centralization Risk & Mitigation Strategies In a previous study by Kai Risius, intelligent contracts were pushed out using the Blockchain platform and proved the orchestration concepts of the systems working together (Risius, 2017). Specifically, blockchain-distributed ledgers were responsible for intelligent contracts and dynamic business functionality used during business transactions and processing on publicly available blockchains. In addition, making these immutable contracts further proved the complexity and requirements showing how the code could not be changed once deployed. Making various changes would require a re-deployment of the infrastructure resulting in a centralization risk due to the attempted attempt methodologies (Konashevych, 2020). This further proved to leverage these for NFTs, and ensuring the data can not be changed over time makes them stand as a piece of Artwork or collectible that could not be replicated or stolen as a result of these occurrences on the ledger running atop a decentralized system. Transactional patterns were also demonstrated as a result of the holdings and circumstances, which could be 28 further evaluated; as a result to see what may have happened in this (Liu Xiao et al., 2021). To help prevent Denial of Service attacks on the infrastructure, it is further impactful which had a decentralized distributed system to handle the load (Xu et al., 2018). Forecasting was essential to the concept, but it was also challenging, so as a result, it would need to be reviewed. By leaving proper forecasting models, investment strategies could be designed and revised to have a predicted Bitcoin return and were statistically more robust (Guerra et al., 2020). In a permissionless environment, one must consider how this would impact the roles and rights of interacting between systems from on-chain and off-chain systems as a result of the hybrid approach of the metaverse. For example, with every NFT owner and buyer, how would that affect working with the digitized asset and interacting with the transaction hash across private and public chains (Cornelius, 2021). These permissionless systems need to be carefully planned and executed as reviewed, whereby blockchain systems in permissionless systems participate in anonymous systems as they develop with various identities and methods (Feng, 2018). The reason for this was that it could be challenging to interact with anonymous users and have those users interact with a trusted system across the identities, ensuring permissionless. Still, a controlled system, yet de-centralized, could provide a more accessible environment to secure, control, maintain, and further establish as an authoritative source over a 51% source. The low rate of blockchain adoption had been involved because of its lack of understanding and innovation in organizational studies (Rogers, 1995; Yu and Hang, 2010; Van de Weerd et al., 2016). IT innovation could be defined as applying a new IT by an organization, individual, or unit (Swanson, 2004). A solution that resolved the scalability and network store part of the blockchain platform further enhances the elasticity of serverless applications. It 29 could further expand beyond the single task approaches (Palaiokrassas et al., 2021). Prototyping was a critical component of reviewing blockchains and contracts while ensuring the proper systems were set up and functional and meeting the defined requirements (Weingärtner et al., 2021). A smart contract could provide appropriate mechanisms and timestamp ordering methodologies, for example, when comparing the contributions to the protocols. Smart contracts allowed for the most effortless conversion while security was lower and more functions favored it (Y. Wang et al., 2021). A blockchain-based booking system was developed to model various processes and then offered those out over the EVM nodes to ensure better automatic model checking (Dong et al., 2020). Being a part of a cryptocurrency study that evaluated the sources and online communities behind the scenes helped establish further credibility and marketing due to these factors. One hundred twenty-eight participants have targeted a result of one study to review the impact of cryptocurrency on their daily environment (Dospinescu & Caramangiu, 2018). Metaverse Vision The metaverse brought their interconnections and dependencies as an overall intertwined system. This brought their challenges which had a public chain and intelligent contracts trying to be interconnected amongst each other to prove further what was possible and prevent users from executing calls from outside a particular path, for example, making API calls and looking for weaknesses within a specific direction (Prasad & Ramachandram, 2021). The system should inform the worker nodes of what private contracts there were and have been deployed due to these new instances and then further define them in a protected and executed way. The settlement should only occur once the finalized calls have been 30 implemented due to the confirmations (Yuan et al., 2018). Within a metaverse concept, there would be a series of public connected blockchains, known as a governance token, helping manage the payment methods, along with a series of private interconnected systems controlling non-fungible passes resulting from the possible interactions within a gaming environment or event an NFT universe. Ensuring the NFTs could interact with one another and were self-aware ensures the contracts themselves could intertwine and continue to expand due to these additional flexibilities. Having private arrangements that could further call each other and interact with each other would allow the metaverse components to intertwine and realize due to the connected systems. Ensuring these private and public approaches were realized, tested, and secured is critical to ensuring the success and outcome of the metaverse subsystems. Solving doublespend was crucial as this resolved issues with assets, money, and any corresponding data on the chain, which was a vital issue with past systems (Moiling et al., 2020). Blockchain technologies were further established for a specific purpose by ensuring they had machine learning mechanisms and were focused on the goal (Kamišalić et al., 2021). As one builds a metaverse, one must account for the economy, where the blockchain fits perfectly. More specifically, several initiatives had been advanced due to the popularity and rise of blockchain technology, allowing these applications to move real money across borders using blockchain technology, making it more accessible to the masses (Cocco et al., 2017). The vision of the metaverse also entailed implementing a real economy and basing it on a real-world system. In contrast, as a result, it could further expand across projects and tie multiple systems together 31 (Menghui et al., 2021). Bringing projects and plans together would further ensure a fortitude of options due to the partnerships and interconnectivity these areas could provide. Another essential concept had a tradable economy as part of the universe. Evaluating trading where the markets are open 24x7, and it was necessary to note the differences and parallels resulting in cryptocurrency (Hudson & Urquhart, 2019). The overall processing power, especially with specialized equipment, could provide an extra hash rate to help power the underlying infrastructure needed to run the platform (Kim et al., 2020). Data Interconnecting When linking data on a blockchain to off-chain data, ensured unlinkability while maintaining linkability must be considered. For example, in a hospital and patient’s privacy, how could medical data be stored on a blockchain but in a fashion to not link directly to an enduser. By figuring this concept out, one could further elaborate on expanding the art of the possible while ensuring the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and General Data Protection Regulation with a patient (Zhang et al., 2020). But if the data could be linked easily and identified, how does it get erased off a blockchain, or what would it look like (Zhang & Lin, 2018)? The blockchain system could be advantageous as it allows a distributed approach to storing health records and sharing them across stakeholders. This opened up several questions about how this system could be restricted to specific entities and ensure only the proper patient access to the correct data at the right time. Encrypting this data and overcoming certain limitations would be the right way to protect and ensure protected data stays protected at the correct times during suitable events. Medical data 32 storage was proposed to claim privacy awareness with the exact location encryption to track the data across the platform (Yang, 2019). Jung (2021) ensured this EMR data could be protected and accessed while staying encrypted, so bringing these concepts further into the metaverse space when resulting in players, characters, NFTs, and key data all encrypted as a result of critical contributions could further ensure non-immutability, reduced transparency, and necessary protections across the platform. Interoperability issues could occur due to two platforms, but open standards made connecting the two nodes easier via the Multiple CBDC bridge project (Jung, 2021). By interconnecting data, it was essential to ensure privacy as a result. Providing user data collected from a legal group was critical and happened with any of these systems and must stand up to compliance across the regions (Becher et al., 2020). Ensuring a permissionless structure is critical to the evolving needs of the application and framework. This builds off the decentralized approach, which allowed trust and verification to occur (Heo & Shin, 2021). Based time is essential due to immutability and authenticity (Ma et al., 2020). Reducing counterfeiting of digital items opens up possibilities with blockchain to write immutable transactions (Yiu, 2021). In addition, to ensure data is on and off-chain, these processes must be integrated by enabling key cryptocurrency-related authenticated sources and further guaranteeing the computing resources were delegated (Kampik & Najjar, 2020). By integrating interconnected systems such as those that rely on cryptographic techniques, one could take advantage of a lower cost and overlay network to further expand the possibilities (Park et al., 2018). The blockchain voting system efficiently represents mismatches and determines which one would 33 win out (Xiaoyu Ma, 2020). Having traditional payment systems replaced by digital transactions made it easier to allow this to come to fruition due to the verifications (Hosseinian et al., 2020). Media Attention Increased cryptocurrency and global media attention could impact platform ecosystems due to increased or decreased cryptocurrency asset systems. The assets can be underlined and pressured due to outside influences, and these need to be considered for what the true capabilities could be handled in the future (Sarkintudu, 2019). With split revenue across markets, this opened the door for value increase and slippage across the ecosystem, allowing arbitrage and additional advantages that suit well in a metaverse and blockchain environment when dealing with in-game and out-of-game economies. Forming a monetary-based policy on a decentralized trusted platform could help accelerate and move forward the experiences where new standards could further be put into place for critical mass adoption. Fake data could be further bolstered, and ensuring the proper leverage at the right time was essential (Reyes-Menendez et al., 2019). Providing a continuous play-to-earn concept can bring intriguing results to the economy as users were incentivized to gamify the system and further expand upon the elements and addictive nature. Then by winning NFTs and SFTs due to the performance, the influence shown in qualitative models would throw the addictive nature accordingly. The media spillover resulting from what was occurring was essential to understand the impact of the high-rank social media users and the overarching impact on the environment (Xie, 2019). ERC-721 40 al., 2021). A few case studies had been used to explore this area (Tomita et al., 2021). Still, an exploratory, dissertation-level, in-depth analysis had yet to be fully published in this space. Several researchers were investigating the blockchain concepts within the cryptocurrency sector; for example, two articles in this space, such as Blockchain and smart contracts for insurance vectors, reviewed the vulnerabilities of Smart Contracts as a whole (Gatteschi, 2018; Prasad & Ramachandram, 2021). This would further help align the research in these verticals and align with the core concepts of these fields of study. The target population would focus on crypto enthusiasts along with gamers. Some users could classify themselves as crypto games, but others could reflect as all-around individuals. This qualitative exploratory study aimed to determine how NFTs could be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. With the criteria in mind, the goal for recruiting was to identify participants in the cryptocurrency space familiar with interacting with the blockchain, gaming, and NFT space to be able to interact with the platforms and not skew results accordingly (Zhang & Xiao, 2019). The study’s sample size was around 50 users to get adequate qualitative survey data. The sample would be recruited from existing crypto and gaming communities. These communities had over 10k users, so finding 50 users willing to take a survey should not be a problem for this project. I would use Google Forms to collect the anonymous data. From there, data would be analyzed and coded to see the response trends using Google Forms and Google Sheets. Population, Sample, and Participant Recruitment As part of the study, the target population would be cryptocurrency platform users. Ensuring a familiar audience with blockchain technologies could impact how the technology is 41 adopted. The population was further focused on gaming enthusiasts who would know the platforms targeted as part of the metaverse. The overall criteria would match the purpose of determining how NFTs can be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. In addition to these requirements, the participants must understand how to interact with the blockchain. They would be familiar with the social community so they can see the survey to participate. These were some of the basic requirements to join in and experience as part of the study. The estimated size of the target population was well over 10,000 community members. The minimum study size would be 50 respondents for the survey. In a qualitative design process, increasing survey respondents were not necessarily better for data accuracy (Skinner et al., 2022). Similar studies using qualitative surveys have used responses of 100 or fewer (Han et al., 2022). A purposive sampling procedure of criterion sampling would be used. Study participants must meet the study criteria. The recruitment post would be posted on the community site. A collection of 50 surveys would gathered from the received responses as part of the data collection. As demonstrated by the researcher Marshall, having too many answers was not necessarily better because it could skew the results. Reviewing the data gathered and ensuring spam results. Accurate data results would be essential to ensure bot responses were weeded out due to the intelligence gathered. A set of criteria to ensure a competent, focused set of users as the participants needed a baseline set of knowledge to interact with the blockchain and connect with the game. The survey participants would be recruited through crypto groups and gaming groups, providing enough focus to gather the results needed to obtain the necessary data to analyze the data. The cryptocurrency groups were focused on metaverse games and the areas with 42 previous experience interacting with the blockchain and this behind the scenes experience. The experience that had been obtained by the participants, removed the barrier to entering, thereby, created better research data than just by having research data that consists of unknowns. The expectation would be that most of the respondents would not respond but retain a big enough group that could theorize enough respondents to fulfill the requirements. Permission was already allowed because, in the cryptocurrency world, everything was anonymous anyways. I am already one of the founders and had received permission from the team. In addition, when users sign up, they provide their approval through the terms of use. Also, when the recruitment post and Google Form were posted, they would agree to the terms of use on the Form when filling out the form, which would be posted on the community Discord site. Data Collection Instrumentation and Procedures The data collection tool used for this study was a survey. Specifically, a Google Form with detailed questions regarding the concepts of the metaverse activities relevant to the study purpose would be used. Providing detailed questions would ensure a complete response on the core concepts of what to look for and how to evaluate them. The survey questions were presented in Appendix A. Questions would focus on critical technical insights with critical topics of blockchain, cryptocurrency, metaverse, and NFTs. The key reason to use surveys was to help gather participants feeling, experiences, and trust within a decentralized platform and understanding of bringing the forum into gaming (Taherdoost, 2022). It also helped the individuals feel like their voices were heard, and continuous improvements were made due to the changes and potential concepts being addressed going forward. 43 To start with the data collection technique, a Google Form would be issued to the community and offered to anyone willing to participate. A sampling of 50 participants would be gathered and used through the process of valid data to take the responses and analyze them for further scrutiny. As part of the data collection, ensuring accurate data such as complete and accurate responses, informed consent, and reflective responses would be guaranteed to capture the intent of the outcomes as opposed to blindness input. Recruitment was inferred of users as the community that was brought in has been pre-screened as having crypto accounts, social media with registered access to NFTs, and experience utilizing NFTs with a gaming approach. Finally, data would be stored with Google Cloud as part of the Google Sheets, where Google Forms stores the data and would be retained for up to seven years as part of the agreement with Google. Potential participants interested in the study would follow the link to the survey provided in the recruitment post. Before answering any survey questions, participants must voluntarily agree to the informed consent statement supplied as the first question on the Google Form. As part of the survey collections, age range and wallet address would be collected, which was anonymous and harder to track. As the participants worked through the survey, they would be required to provide short answers to each survey question. Otherwise, the survey would be terminated due to a timeout function. Each question was marked as required within the survey so a participant could not continue on to the next question until the previous one had been answered. Once the survey had been completed, the participant would be finished participating in the study. The survey was estimated to take a maximum of 10 minutes to complete. No personal identification information would be 44 collected in this process. Survey responses would be downloaded and transferred to Google Forms for analysis. Safe storage would help ensure data integrity within Google Cloud. Before beginning the study, a pilot study would be conducted. The pilot study's purpose was to determine and understand the optimal number of participants that would be used in the pilot study. The pilot study would further help to ensure the randomization techniques. These pilot study participants would meet the study criteria, but the data obtained from their responses would not be included in the study findings. Selecting the proper standards and determining the correct focus audience would help ensure the proper outcome and results within the final study. Permission for use would be asked for during the Google Form and was also granted as part of being on the project and in terms of use. The cryptocurrency community was entirely anonymous, so users were always more open to presenting information because nothing easily correlated back to an individual participant. Data Analysis and Procedures When collecting and looking through the data associated with the surveys, themes would be considered, such as consistent messaging around NFTs as a utility or messages they go against this statement and tracking the respondents to where they are leaning towards one or the other indecisive. As part of the codebooks developed and themes, these would be used to provide relevant data and results to understand better the results' accuracy and the answer to the overall research question (Conrad & Tucker, 2019). Card sorting could be further used to help identify this data, distill the results, and look into the overarching answer to the question to understand if the respondents provided enough insights to bring relevant data forward. 45 Utilizing Google Sheets would allow for scaling through the data looking for trends in the criteria of the collected data. Examples of the collected data would be looking at the demographics, sorting through the demographic ranges, and correlating that with the experienced users in NFT holders. Identifying any trends or comparisons with the data would find compelling results to determine answers to the questions asked around what the participants consider a value NFT and point to the original thought of the study. There were many approaches to collecting data to analyze the data further to determine the final results and impact of the research. Google Forms, with the use of Google Sheets, would be the tool to help decipher the data. As part of reviewing the data, some of the themes would be reviewed for using an NFT with utility over a meme NFT. Another consideration would be the quality of the NFT, such as capabilities provided by an NFT, for example, an upgrade NFT versus a static one. Another capability of an NFT that would be evaluated as part of the data collection would be to see the utility of an NFT, such as the perks, versus one that did not have access to such perks or resources. While there are many options of digital assets to choose from, having a utility NFT would it make a difference in interacting with a metaverse or would not adjust the value, and the data collected through the survey would highlight the appropriate data to help circle back to the initial question highlighted in the study. Trustworthiness Trust involves expectations and motives or the willingness to act. The main focus was trusting the results as a reader and ensuring one could authorize the study results and findings. By building the evidence and providing the accuracy of the research, one could guarantee the conclusions were relevant, accurate, and overall trustworthy (Zhou & Miguel Baptista, 2013). 46 Trustworthiness was ultimately a single point of failure, and without it could lead to insufficient data and a collapse in the case. Working through it and providing safeguards or risk mitigation strategies to letting the participants trust the researcher as much as possible is the best way to ensure trust. Building trustworthiness as part of the survey approach was critical to getting participants to understand and provide essential data as part of the study. If the participant does not trust the survey, the data would be inaccurate (Salminen et al., 2022). It was also essential the study would consist of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. All of which the examination must demonstrate, or it could undermine the fundamental research. Credibility was the focus on where the research builds the believability and convincing or background trustworthiness of the reputation of the researcher and participants (Jeng & He, 2022). For example, providing a depth of research and resources in the dissertation demonstrates the knowledge the researcher had acquired, putting the information together to understand where they were at. Additional credibility was inferred as part of the study with the non-random purposive sampling approach. When one takes a purposive sample, the bias was reduced through the criteria met by the research participants, which could build the verifiability and credibility within the findings and build the outcomes as a more critical use case and additional findings. The data collected would be totaled together for each outcome and brought together in different perspectives to determine the outcomes and predictions. Throughout the project, credibility would be preserved by referencing and using quality sources and critical focus points when bringing in research areas. The transferability was achieved by providing the mechanisms and replicating how this data was gathered throughout 47 the research study to allow others to mimic the results. Building a shared understanding of the knowledge, trust, reputation, and surrounding concepts within the beliefs and assumptions defined could further build mutual ground on the social roles and ideas used throughout the research (Xie et al., 2022). Finally, confirmability was further engrained by demonstrating the results effectively throughout the investigation. Replicating the results within others’ research could further build upon the research to identify the knowledge share between researchers as part of the studies (Underhill, 1995). To establish dependability, Google Forms was provided in Appendix A to highlight other survey questions. Trust also related closely to the idea of reliability in the research view. Having dependable research was also reliable, ensuring it could consistently be accurate, precise, and trustworthy (Bashir et al., 2008). Properly providing proper analysis was critical to have the right results at the right time. Confirmability was also established by testing the questions, ensuring the results and data were connected correctly and showing personal data staying out of the system. The methods were linked and further influenced as a result. Providing certainty and results was essential to the validity of the results as a way to triple-check the outcome to avoid mistakes, bias, and misinterpretations of the data and findings. Determining an expected outcome, then providing a specific metric to the development could ensure a repeatable process for reaffirming and providing process rigor to the functions and providing dependable results to the continuity of the research provided by the study. Ethical Assurances Study processes would be put into place to better ensure the ethical standards were abided by and the participants' identities were protected by aggregating the data and ensuring 48 the anonymized data could not be tracked back to the participants. This would also ensure the data was better trusted and the participants provided better information because they understood it was anonymized. As part of the Belmont process, that would be followed was respect for each survey taker by ensuring their privacy, informed consent of their privacy, and storage of their data for the seven years via Google. The data would be anonymized by not asking for their email and not requesting any Google email (Dutka & Astroth, 2022). There were no potential risks to the candidates taking the surveys as no personal information or threat of secrets are being asked due to this survey. In addition, there were no direct benefits to carrying out this survey either. The recruitment would be a straightforward process where users in the online community would be messaged a Google Form for participation. The benefits to society were to provide further awareness of the value of NFTs and understanding of what an NFT was, its potential of perceived value, and how one could further value it in a different light, more than just an image. Still, underlying stats or behind-the-scenes technicalities as opposed to just reviewing its face value. Understanding all aspects of an NFT and the benefits from all sides, one could make a better-informed decision before getting an NFT from a marketplace. The more considerable benefit to society was by further expanding on the research in the field and focusing on the new NFT area that had been picking up attention. Chapter Summary The research provided demonstrated the overall recruitment of study participants, data gathered, and the data collection processed and procured. The comprehensive data collection and instrumentation process were further discussed within the areas. The themes and insights covered the expectations and data focal points as part of asking the survey responders to 49 provide detailed answers or quick summaries to the questions and additional information to protect the aspects of the research question from analyzing further what was covered and what was not. These aspects helped to build credibility for the general research topic. In addition, the trustworthiness and ethical assurance were further evaluated as part of the research study to demonstrate the results from the findings of the focus area in the project. As part of Chapter 4, the survey process would be reviewed to highlight the results and conclusions. Results would reveal more insights into the research process to see the narratives and survey responses to those areas. 56 The additional question was, “What sources do you consider reliable when acquiring an NFT?”. The responses mainly ranged toward “Friends.” However, there were also a few other surprise responses too, such as “Celebrity Endorsements” or “Influencers” and then also “Media Publications." One additional response that seemed to pop-up as a commonality for the referenced question was also a security audit and whitepaper which is also enjoyable. In cryptocurrency, a security audit by a known and reputable firm is becoming increasingly recommended to have that stamp of approval or once review on your asset to get a further nod of trust in the cryptocurrency space. When reviewing NFT projects just starting up, one question posed to the participants was, “Hypothetically, if you are the project creator of an NFT, what are some tasks you would do to create demand?” It was not surprising that most of the respondents did not expressly state the same response; they basically said the same idea or concept. They all hinted at marketing. Some participants directly stated marketing, while others noted a “strong community.” In the cryptocurrency space having a community is the same effect as advertising or marketing. This is key to a living and breathing project is the way that marketing occurs. There were also a ton of variable responses that would also be useful for further research in the future that some of them tied into the metaverse properties such as VR or other areas such as “Proof of Insurance,” which could be an interesting future project for a whole different research sector. Still, overall there was a majority difference in responses, with many other concepts brought up in this section for discussion. A critical question that was also asked and is essential from the start for NFT or even token assets was considering the blockchain on which a project will run. Participants responded 57 that Ethereum was the overall chain used, with many stating Polygon and Binance as other chains. The data was not surprising as Ethereum, as of 2022, is the heavy NFT chain used for most projects leveraging the most common platform OpenSea. In addition, as part of the survey results, OpenSea was the most responsive to the medium used for NFT trading across all the participants. The leveraged blockchain can make or break a project, as this is where the investors are, and not having an accessible platform or chain would result in little to no traction. Discussion of Study Findings Understanding the current results as part of the qualitative results demonstrated that the data provided, while subjective, is also telling as part of building credibility, considering the sampling and the sample size taken as a result of the data. One speaking area of the data was the majority of the responses contained the request for focusing on Utility NFTs as a critical characteristic of obtaining an NFT (31 of 44). As an example of a comment on a utility NFT collection, one of the participants commented, “The NFT market was looking for utility in the crypto world and the normal world, in the case of games a useful, friendly way to use the NFTs example DEEPSPACE game. Anyone could use an NFT in DEEPSPACE and give it utility in the game.” The DEEPSPACE (DPS) collection was known for its unique utility attributes and dynamic contract capabilities to allow NFTs to evolve and expand over time. Throughout the study, additional insights were determined; for example, the marketplace options proved that regardless of where the NFTs are acquired from or what chain is used, as long as the consumer knew about the NFT and it fits their interests, the consumer would receive it. One participant provided great insight, “If the market is volatile, sure, I'll sell 58 for profit or stake it, but otherwise, I believe in the long-term utility and holding it can be a real game-changer.” This also tied to another concept when the markets get rough; the common perception was to hold the NFTs rather than trying to sell them at a loss or minimal profit. There have been studies performed on market analysis. For example, in the Chinese stock market, it has been shown low or no information released and bearish markets being formed can affect stock market crashes in China (Chu et al., 2021). Evaluating and reflecting on these cryptocurrency markets that tie closer to the stock markets have many of the same perspectives. The information gathered from the survey demonstrated investors attempt to hold as a result as long as there is “transparency and legitimacy.” Similar to public stock markets, it was even more expected in cryptocurrency to have information disclosed as part of the projects. It was an exciting find that confirms this thought as part of reviewing the overall data as part of this study. The detailed survey results have been included in Appendix B, where additional data has been sorted and included further to understand the respondents’ viewpoints on cryptocurrency. Including the data helps present a transparent and credible perspective, whereas in many studies, this was not included; it leaves the audience with a lack of understanding of the conclusions reached (Tomita et al., 2021). As part of overcoming these challenges in identifying the data structure, as provided earlier, the data results could help build the integrity of the study and allow for future research to be conducted on the included data. The research question addressed from the survey questions was, how can NFTs be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand? This research question was divided into two sub-questions to help classify and categorize the concepts. The first sub- 59 question was, as markets mature, could comparable NFTs be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of utility NFTs? The surveys highlighted that the “long-term utility” of the project was most important. At the same time, the “potential for profit” arrived second for the selection and comparison of NFTs across the market. The survey data demonstrated that NFTs could be monetized and used to create a need and provide the demand. As shown by the detailed research results in Appendix B, making NFTs with characterizations, whether existing or new, could inherently create or add on to an existing market and thereby create the demand to drive investors to the NFTs. The second sub-question that was also reviewed was what unique characterizations and market conditions are required. Based on the results, the survey participants highlighted that as market conditions matured, their opinions would mostly not change in the reports of the NFTs that would be invested in (17 of 44). Specifically, as one individual called out, “NFTs and good project show value in time, regardless of market conditions, but of course, when the market matures, it can only benefit and not make it less valuable.” The results were the same when the market deteriorated, and the overwhelming response was that no design would change (26 of 44). The results aligned with the perspective that NFTs appear not to follow what a traditional asset would follow. Instead, the consumer interest in acquiring and holding onto them would fall back to the overarching idea that the characterizations and project itself were more important than the market conditions. Based on the findings, NFTs could create new markets and entice demand by relying on unique and limited characteristics defined throughout this research. Chapter Summary 60 The findings demonstrated a sampling of the cryptocurrency market speculation about NFTs. Reviewing the data from the survey shows how NFTs and the metaverse are viewed today. As a result, these perceptions could influence the global markets when applied holistically, at scale. The findings further demonstrated the conclusion to the research questions, identifying how the needs of the market are not only independent of the characteristics of an NFT but, furthermore, the more influence a project had on, and the greater the utility an NFT has was one of the biggest drivers to investing in an NFT. In Chapter 5, the discussion of the concluding results will be analyzed as the final part of the study. 61 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusions The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to investigate how NFTs can be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. This research study examined this new space and saw how this could be reviewed to be developed into something useful. For example, NFTs can be used in a game world to connect users to in-game experiences, which represses a metaverse interaction with NFTs or SFTs. A qualitative research approach was used to understand the characteristics of the social phenomena on why NFTs may or may not be more valuable as a utility in a metaverse environment as a utility (Liu et al., 2020). The study opportunity is to investigate NFTs within the blockchain platform further to identify how adding utility and combining the utility inside a metaverse would hold the value of NFTs (Davis et al., 2009). Even the concept of loading NFTs inside the metaverse could arrive by big players allowing a more affordable and accessible access option over time (Valeonti et al., 2021). Four hundred and ninety million dollars is the latest value the NFTs have generated in 2021 alone (Muddasar & Bagui, 2021). Artists want to use digital assets to sell art, but how is the value derived from the seemingly thousands of NFTs being minted at scale. The research will further be reviewed to identify ones with utility or provide extra weight on top of the art to see if those hold value over a more extended period. An ERC-721 is a framework created by Ethereum that says this type of token, the NFT, is Unique and can have a different value from the same contract (Palmisano et al., 2022). Implementing a well-architected ERC-721 standard for NFT tokens can ensure consistency across the platform and data interoperability, allowing the digital assets to be valuable and transactive on the platforms (Palmisano et al., 2022). The assets can be used for tickets, 62 gaming, or digital art to establish a marketplace to further transact upon and communicate between a buyer and a seller to establish a relationship (Caldarelli, 2022). The economy involved can be further exploited depending on the buyer or seller, which can be leveraged depending on the asset's value going forward. Limitations of Study Findings The target elements within this research space covered NFTs and the metaverse as a utility on the blockchain. The scope further focused on the utility in this fashion and how it could interact with marketing, gaming, and the economic impact of the interoperability of these components. The limitations of this study were focused on not going beyond the mentioned boundaries and, as such, would disregard other types of NFTs outside the ERC-721 standard and not on the standard OpenSea trading platform. By ensuring a consistent trading platform that is analyzed and reviewed, these boundaries could be further limited to a focused research topic. Going to non-standards or new standards and off-marketplaces can skew the results and provide too many variables that would skew the results of the NFT values, which would further result in ineffective data and inaccurate results in the research process. In the blockchain, anyone can create a contract, whether it follows a standard or not, as long as it follows the correct code for the particular blockchain. As long as the marketplace, or a custom marketplace, is created to read the blockchain and present the data, the digital assets could be displayed to the end-users. Following the standards makes it easier for transferability and interoperability across digital wallets and standardized tools and marketplaces, as those are more likely to be able to display and work with end-users. 63 There were a few sampling challenges with this study in terms of recruitment. For example, the sampling was done in cryptocurrency eccentric groups pre-exposed to NFTs, cryptocurrency, and gaming backgrounds, which may have some influence or predisposition over bias. The justification for this area is that the participants would also have the education needed to understand the market and the impacted scope to understand the asked survey questions. A general audience would not be able to respond without having a background in this area. The limitations provided further reinforce the study, which helps provide additional perspective and value due to the data collected from the audience. The participants responded with their views based on the criteria and their understandings of the market value, which further reinforced the market concepts for what was necessary at the time of impact and current trends, adding more weight and credibility to current conditions, which further removed bias in the data from any of the potential researcher’s influence. Interpretation of Study Findings NFT markets have been inherently ripe for new markets due to the ability to identify needed characteristics, utility, and different perspectives for what investors are looking for to determine demand. Monetizing the markets could occur as a result of aligning to market perspectives. In the upcoming section, the market creation and monetization areas have been further reviewed to understand how these have occurred. The findings from the study impact these data points. Monetization and Market Creation 64 The research findings further reviewed the overarching research questions for the study. The first main question was, how could NFTs be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand? The research findings determined that NFTs can be monetized and used to create a market and provide the demand. As demonstrated by the detailed research results in Appendix B, creating NFTs with characterizations, whether existing or new, can inherently create or add on to an existing market and thereby create the demand to drive investors to the NFTs. In addition, the results aligned from this perspective as this is telling for where NFTs, as of this study, appear not to follow what a traditional asset would follow but instead, the consumer interest in acquiring and holding onto them would purely fall back to the overarching idea that the characterizations and project itself is more important than the market conditions. The determination and effectiveness of a utility of an NFT was another key finding that determined the effect a particular asset could have on a market when released. As part of the next findings, the scope of the importance of utility was reviewed to better understand the relationship and importance of the balance of the attribute for the release of the NFT collection to the market. Utility Effectiveness The first sub-question reviewed in the study was, as markets mature, could comparable NFTs be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of utility NFTs? Based on the findings, NFTs can be used to create new markets and entice demand by relying on unique and limited characteristics defined throughout this research. Even as markets pull back due to a market downturn, markets are still being created and bet on in riskier assets, such as NFTs, able to 65 create volume and demand due to the perceived value of newer collections. The idea of holding an NFT for its long-term value or flipping an NFT in a trading market can vary depending on the investor’s goals. However, overall, the market pressures of buying and selling are still perceived when the proper advertising, influencing, and uniqueness is brought into perspective. In addition, the study demonstrates an NFT anywhere cannot just occur but rather a focused blockchain with active investors and an active market. Ethereum is the biggest market as of 2022, where most of the trading volume appears on OpenSea on that particular chain. While supported, other chains, such as BNB Smart Chain, have significantly less book due to adoption and investor support. The final set of outcomes as part of the findings was identifying the unique characterizations and specific market conditions the NFT collections would have on a market. The more unique and limited an NFT collection was, the better it performed regardless of conditions, and what would be reviewed in the next section would reveal the detailed data points for the characteristics of these areas. Unique Characterizations and Market Conditions The second sub-question that was reviewed was what unique characterizations and market conditions would be required? As demonstrated by the Twitter example, where former CEO Jack Dorsey sold the first Twitter message as an NFT for $2.9 Million (Pinto-Gutiérrez et al., 2022), an NFT of perceiver value or art can influence the market or create demand because of its perceived value which as a result which then had the draw. This value further deteriorated as of April 2022, where the highest bid offered was $280, over a 99% decline (Kauflin, 2022). This coincided with what participants stated regarding usage and art or historical events that 72 metaverse interaction with NFTs or SFTs. A qualitative research approach is used to understand the characteristics of the social phenomena on why NFTs may or may not be more valuable as a utility in a metaverse environment as a utility (Liu et al., 2020). The study research questions would help further answer a question related to a practice-oriented problem in the field of computer science by diving into the more profound questions of the newly created area in the field of the blockchain and, more specifically, NFTs that sit on top of the blockchain. To address the study purpose, primary and sub-research questions have been developed. By reviewing these questions presented throughout the study, they provided conclusions as part of the data collected. When analyzed, they made specific inferences and comparisons that were important as part of the overall research, demonstrating credible results. To summarize, the study’s conclusions focused on how NFTs could be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. From there, the sub-question of, as markets mature, comparable NFTs could be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of utility NFTs? Then also, what unique characterizations and market conditions are required? The specific qualitative research methodology selected for this study is part of what underpins this topic. The focus on qualitative methods will provide and generate new ideas for research and concepts while delivering critical determinations for providing definitive conclusions of answering the question by giving an outcome. Looking forward to future research shows that variable identification verification is one way to further the research provided as part of the blockchain data and extend the data provided. In addition, another avenue to enhance the data provided is to evaluate the research 73 from a ticket distribution mindset, such as a concert venue, and provide consumers a way to handle acquiring NFTs and SFTs, and distribute tickets accordingly. The research question that was answered from the survey questions was, how could NFTs be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand? This research question was divided into two sub-questions to help classify and categorize the concepts. The first sub-question is, as markets mature, could comparable NFTs be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of utility NFTs? The surveys highlighted that the long-term utility of the project is most important. At the same time, the profit potential came in second for the selection and comparison of NFTs across the market. The survey data demonstrated that NFTs could be monetized and used to create a need and provide the demand. As shown by the detailed research results in Appendix B, making NFTs with characterizations, whether existing or new, can inherently create or add on to an existing market and thereby create the demand to drive investors to the NFTs. The second sub-question that was also reviewed was what unique characterizations and market conditions are required. Based on the results, the survey participants highlighted that as market conditions matured, their opinions would mostly not change in the reports of the NFTs that would be invested in (17 of 44). Specifically, as one individual called out, “NFTs and good project show value in time, regardless of market conditions, but of course, when the market matures, it can only benefit and not make it less valuable.” The results were the same when the market deteriorated, and the overwhelming response was that no design would change (26 of 44). The results aligned from this perspective as this is telling for where NFTs, as of this study, appear not to follow what a traditional asset would follow but instead, the consumer interest in 74 acquiring and holding onto them would purely fall back to the overarching idea that the characterizations and project itself is more important than the market conditions. Based on the findings, NFTs can be used to create new markets and entice demand by relying on unique and limited characteristics defined throughout this research. The problem that was addressed is how the gaming and metaverse can tie in a player's opportunity and keep someone engaged in this space. Getting a player’s attention and encouraging a player to participate as part of the community by providing a sense of purpose or belonging is critical to the success of a game and will help give more value to the overall project. As demonstrated by the survey findings, participants responded that a substantial undertaking, and a sense of inclusion, would more likely entice the longer hold times of wanting to participate and encourage the participation of a project due to inclusion. This not only solves the problem of creating demand for a particular NFT project but also creates an entirely new market which allows for a longer-term mindset and content creation due to the latest entries within this market. Due to the data produced, almost any characteristic an NFT demonstrates can generate value and order; finding a relevant factor, whether historically related, musicrelated, meme-related, utility-related, gaming related, etc., can impact weight and build a market and demand. Overall, the blockchain and cryptocurrency, concerning asset handling, are endless, and the study was scratching the surface of the possibilities of what could be done based on the technology evaluated as of 2022. 75 References Antal, C., Cioara, T., Anghel, I., Antal, M., & Salomie, I. (2021). Distributed ledger technology review and decentralized applications development guidelines. Future Internet, 13(3), 62. https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/13/3/62 Atlam, H. F., Alenezi, A., Alassafi, M. O., & Wills, G. B. (2018). Blockchain with Internet of Things: benefits, challenges, and future directions. 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Library Hi Tech, 31(3), 419-434. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-11-2012-0104 95 Appendix A: Survey Questions NFT Collection Questions IRB Consent Sample Form (Note: will process / cleanup into Google Form as part of a disclosure) I am asking you to participate in a research study titled “Non-Fungible Tokens Value with Metaverse and Blockchain Gaming”. What the study is about The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study is to determine how NFTs can be monetized and used by creating a market to provide the demand. This research study will examine this new space and see how this could be reviewed to be developed into something useful. What we will ask you to do I will ask you to fill out the Google Survey to the best of your ability as accurately as possible. The survey should take about 10-15 minutes maximum of your time. Risks and discomforts If there are no known risks, state: I do not anticipate any risks from participating in this research. 96 Benefits I hope to learn from this research additional knowledge for the research community to study how individuals think when selecting NFTs and consider deciding to hold an NFT for value. When determining a particular NFT for value, whether it is of specific interest, such as a music NFT, a piece of artwork, gaming, intrinsic value, or just a random shot in the dark, or has some particular utility attached to it. Compensation for participation As part of participating and taking the time to complete the survey, participants will receive an NFT token. Privacy/Confidentiality/Data Security Participant's data and privacy are critical and essential, and the following items are going to be taken into effect as part of the survey: - No collection of personal data (anonymous survey) - De-identification of data - Physical security of data is behind MFA and in secured cloud storage - The researcher and the organizing university will have access to the anonymous information 97 - The data will be stored in the cloud storage for up to 7 years and then destroyed accordingly - Note: Data may exist on backups and server logs beyond the timeframe of this research project. Taking part is voluntary This research study is entirely voluntary, and the participant may refuse to participate before the survey begins or discontinue at any time. Data collected within this form is anonymized, and no personal information is collected or shared as part of this research. In addition, data is kept and stored for up to 7 years for further research. By continuing you agree to these statements and agree you will provide accurate responses to ensure fair research assessments. Click I Approve if you agree to the above [Consent Included] [Note the below questions will be translated to a Google Form] Candidate Number (Randomly Assigned on Google Sheet) 1. What is your age?