FuturePaymentsNon FungibleTokens
FuturePaymentsNon FungibleTokens
FuturePaymentsNon FungibleTokens
Research
marion.laboure@db.com
Galina Pozdnyakova
galina.pozdnyakova@db.com
September 2022
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7T2se3r0Ot6kwoPa
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Chartbook: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) + Web3 = The Future
of E-commerce?
Today, we are publishing a new Chartbook on Non-Fungible
Tokens (NFTs) + Web3 = The Future of E-Commerce?, recapping
what it is for and its main uses, including the metaverse.
‒ NFT is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, is not interchangeable and is recorded on a blockchain to certify
authenticity and ownership
‒ NFTs are used to represent various virtual and physical items as unique digital assets.
Collectible
Utility
SUBSET
‒ A digital certificate/ ticket Art
‒ An authenticity, certificate of belonging
to protect intellectual property Metaverse
No Yes
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
USA United Kingdom Spain Italy Germany France
Source: Deutsche Bank dbDIG. Note: percentage of respondents answering, “Prior to today, had you personally heard of NFTs (Non-fungible tokens)?”
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
France Germany Italy United Kingdom Spain USA
No understanding of NFTs A minimal or fair understanding of NFTs A deep or good understanding of NFTs
Source: Deutsche Bank dbDIG. Note: percentage of respondents answering “Overall, how well do you personally understand NFTs? 'I have …”
Agree/ disagree with the following statements: In 5 years, NFTs will ...
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
USA UK Eurozone* USA UK Eurozone* USA UK Eurozone* USA UK Eurozone* USA UK Eurozone*
Source: Deutsche Bank dbDIG. Note: percentage of respondents answering “Overall, how well do you personally understand NFTs? 'I have …”; * Note: the Eurozone is proxied by
Germany, France, Italy and Spain using weighted average of respective populations.
1,400
800
600
‒ Pak’s “The Merge” was sold for
400
$91.8m (December 2, 2021), making it
the most expensive NFT sold to date. 200
0
Jan-19 Jul-19 Jan-20 Jul-20 Jan-21 Jul-21 Jan-22 Jul-22
40
20
0
Jan-21 Mar-21 May-21 Aug-21 Oct-21 Dec-21 Feb-22 May-22 Jul-22
Source: The Law Office of Michael E. Kondoudis, CoinMarketCap, Dexerto, Morning Consult, AlphaSense, Google Trends, Deutsche Bank. Note: as of September 5th 2022.
40
Average % of spending being done online
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
UK US Spain Germany Italy France
0.5
0.0
-0.5
Widespread Covid
lockdowns, travel
restrictions
-1.0
Jan-19 Apr-19 Jul-19 Oct-19 Jan-20 Apr-20 Jul-20 Oct-20 Jan-21 Apr-21 Jul-21 Oct-21 Jan-22 Apr-22 Jul-22
8. IKEA IKEA
9. Seven & I Seven & I
The Home Depot Consumers
10.Home Depot Manufacturer Advertising / Website
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
International company revenues ($ billions)
Source: National Retail Federation, Deutsche Bank. Source: Deutsche Bank research.
Source: Statista, Insider Intelligence, Grayscale Investments, YPulse, Pew Research Center, Deutsche Bank.
Nike retail sales by distribution channel – the company has been increasingly moving towards direct-to-consumer
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Wholesale Direct-to-Consumer
Currency Aspect
Cryptocurrencies are fungible stores of
value that can be transferred P2P without a
bank or any other middle man.
Data tokenisation can allow data to be shared across both private and public sector organisations without compromising privacy
— Marketing data
— Spending and insurance Third-party data Third-party data
information
UK UK UK
In a few years
These days…
“
We forget, in our generation, that things don’t have to be physical… They can
be digital, and they have meaning to people. And as long as that meaning can
“
be essentially substantiated in a blockchain, I think you’re going to see an
explosion of things being created, traded, collected in NFTs.
- Bob Iger
- Former Disney CEO
‒ Select a crypto wallet 30-day MA of daily unique buyers and sellers of NFTs, thousands
70
Unique buyers
‒ Choose a crypto exchange and get an 60
30
‒ Choose an NFT platform and connect the 20
wallet to it. Some platforms accept fiat.
10
0
‒ Once connected, select NFTs to purchase Sep-20 Mar-21 Sep-21 Mar-22 Sep-22
from platform’s offering. Many are akin to the Average prices have declined from their peaks. The number of active
usual online shopping experience. Some wallets has also shrunk.
NFTs can be purchased right away while 100 3,000
others require an auction process. Active market wallets (thousand, lhs)
Average price in USD (rhs) 2,500
80
2,000
‒ NFT transactions require variable gas* fees. 60
Buyer’s wallet should have enough balance to 1,500
cover for both the price and the gas fee. 40
1,000
20
500
‒ Once bought, the NFT can be accessed using
the crypto wallet. 0 0
Sep-20 Mar-21 Sep-21 Mar-22 Sep-22
Source: NonFungible, Money.com, Coinbase, Deutsche Bank. Note: Gas fees are payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate
transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.
Gaming Studio
Marketplaces
VR
DeFi NFT
Domains
DAO
Infrastructure
Collectibles
Games
1 3 5
15th century:
Computer art techniques Nowadays: going mainstream?
The Gutenberg press proliferate in mid 20th century
– better literacy but no ‒ Nike x RTFKT sneakers
Digital art emerges later in the
copyright ‒ NFL NFTs
century
‒ Budweiser NFTs
Andy Warhol presents Pop Art
‒ Vault Art Space by Gucci
and SuperRare
‒ Art sales - Beeple
Source: History.com, the UK Copyright Service, Britannica, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Art Newspaper, nftexplained.info, Deutsche Bank Research
$5.9 trillion
$1.1 trillion
1990 2025
Key features
NFTs have seen spectacular growth but this field is still nascent, resulting in both opportunities and risks
NFTs so far:
‒ Main use cases of NFTs include art, gaming and collectibles
‒ Collectibles with highest all-time sales volumes include:
‒ Bored Ape Yacht Club
‒ CryptoPunks
‒ Azuki
‒ Games like Axie Infinity are built around NFTs. These tokens are useful in the metaverse.
‒ In art, NFTs are used to prove ownership and receive compensation.
‒ Corporates use NFTs to increase brand loyalty.
Participating in NFTs:
‒ Need cryptos (e.g., Ethereum) and a wallet (e.g., MetaMask) to transact
‒ OpenSea is one of the most popular marketplaces
‒ Early adopters and influencers are the key active participants
‒ Forums and communication channels exist for NFT enthusiasts
Risks:
‒ NFTs lack regulatory oversight and often do not have the status of securities, limiting oversight and consumer protection.
‒ Money laundering, tax issues, manipulations and insider trading are key issues. IP and copyright are important.
‒ Cybersecurity.
Sources: FT, CoinGecko, and Deutsche Bank calculations.
CryptoPunks and BAYC are among the most popular NFT collections by a significant margin.
Many collections, however, have traded 1000s worth of ETH.
0
Axie Infinity CryptoPunks BAYC Mutant AYC Art Blocks NBA Top Shot Otherdeed Azuki Mobox Clone X
Source: DappRadar, Deutsche Bank. Note: as of September 5th, 2022.
‒ Primary sale: NFT minter sells to new owner Monthly sales of NFTs in $bn
(whitelisting).
January: elevated
‒ Whitelisting is key for primary sales. 5.0 secondary and primary
Primary sales markets trading Other side, of the
‒ The return distribution for sold NFTs can be Bored Ape Yacht
4.5 Secondary sales Club fame, sold
vastly different. The Merge, the
virtual land for
most expensive
NFT ever sold hundreds of
4.0
($92m) million dollars
‒ Secondary sale: an already minted and sold NFT is CryptoPunks
sold again to a new owner. 3.5 fuel trading
1.0
0.5
0.0
Jan-21 Apr-21 Jul-21 Oct-21 Jan-22 Apr-22 Jul-22
Source: NonFungible, Chainalysis, sensoriumxr.com, Cryptoslam.io, Deutsche Bank.
More 5 0.3
‒ For instance, the Ronin sidechain, used by Axie 27%
0 0.0
Infinity, suffered a hack that resulted in $650 m
losses
Source: DappRadar, Dune, CryptoSlam.io, Deutsche Bank. Note: as of September 5th 2022.
‒ (i) Discord: project owners created a Discord server for Ethereum average gas price in Gwei
the NFT project 800
‒ (ii) Early Bird: early members of Discord server are
granted access to mint a number of NFTs before the
700
general public
‒ (iii) Public at a certain point in time, NFT minting is
600
opened up to the general public
‒ How minting happens?
500
‒ NFT minting refers to the process when a NFT is
created and transformed to its initial owner
400
‒ Requires sending a transaction to the NFT projects
smart contract to call the mint function
300
‒ The miners decide the order of the transactions
‒ Prioritised base on what the owner of the 200
transaction is willing to pay
‒ Gas price, measures in gwei (1 billionth of an 100
ETH)
‒ What you are willing to pay per execution step 0
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
‒ Each transaction has a cap on max total spend
Source: Etherscan.io, Deutsche Bank. Note: * Gas fees are payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions on the
Ethereum blockchain.
Number of NFT users in selected countries, 2021 in m NFT: interest over time (Sep'17 - Sep’22, Google Trends)
Thailand China
US Singapore
China Nigeria
Vietnam Philippines
India Taiwan
Canada Cyprus
Germany Georgia
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 20 40 60 80 100
– IP rights are important, given prices of some NFTs and information Collectibles are the key driver of volumes
Share of NFT $ sales by type, monthly
they represent.
100%
– Many participants confuse the rights they acquire when
buying NFTs. Often, it is metadata that is being purchased, 80%
not the artwork itself.
60% Art
– Many forms of embedded contracts exist (e.g., an NFT may be Collectibles
sold without a copyright assignment). 40% Game
Utility
– For brands, it is vital to extend their trademarks to NFTs, as Nike did
Metaverse
in 2021. As NFT adoption grows, more cases will likely be brought up 20%
regarding copyright infringement involving NFTs.
0%
– Similar to Hermes, it has filed a lawsuit against a company Jan-19 Jul-19 Jan-20 Jul-20 Jan-21 Jul-21 Jan-22 Jul-22
who used images of its products in NFTs.
Art, collectibles and the metaverse are the priciest categories
Relative average $ NFT prices by type, monthly
100%
– NFTs, owing to their non-fungibility and use of blockchain, may be
important to authenticate brand’s products and avoid counterfeiting. 80% Art
Collectibles
– Nike’s use of “Cryptokicks” “twins” to authenticate the Game
physical pair of shoes is an example. 60%
Utility
Metaverse
40%
‒ Trademarking NFT implies that brand’s name/logo cannot be used in NFTs by anyone other than the brand itself; NFT-
connected services can be trademarked as well. It is important to keep brand’s NFTs valuable and trustworthy.
‒ The sheer number of companies that have applied for NFT trademarks creates a “gravity pull” for their uses – keeping the
trademark requires using it in commercial applications.
‒ While the current crypto rout has dented the hype around various blockchain technologies, Web3, blockchain and some version
of the metaverse are likely to continue developing, adding option value to early-movers brands in the NFT space.
600 400
300
400
200
200 100
0
0
Feb-22
Feb-21
Apr-21
Apr-22
Oct-21
Mar-21
Mar-22
May-21
Jun-21
Sep-21
Jan-21
Jan-22
Jul-21
Aug-21
May-22
Dec-21
Nov-21
Oct-21
Feb-22
Feb-21
Apr-21
Apr-22
Mar-21
Mar-22
Jun-21
Sep-21
Jan-21
May-21
Jan-22
Jul-21
Aug-21
May-22
Nov-21
Dec-21
Source: The Law Office of Michael E. Kondoudis, The Fashion Law, Deutsche Bank Research.
‒ Coca Cola ventured in the metaverse & NFTs in July 2021 by auctioning
off collectibles for charitable causes for $575k.
‒ NFL has given out more than 500K NFTs related to tickets since Nov.
2021 launch. The league is now selling video NFTs with moments from
the games. In May, the NFL announced a 2023 release of NFL Rivals –
an NFT-based play-to-own video game. Earlier that month, a similar
initiative was announced by MLB.
Revenues can come from royalties as well Secondary markets show popularity and liquidity
Tiffany 60
1,000
Gucci
50
Adidas 800
40
Time Magazine
600
Budweiser 30
Primary sales Total royalties
400
Bud Light
20
AO
200
10
Lacoste
0 0
Nickolodeon
McLaren
‒ Earlier NFT successes with Stella Artois (NFTs for a digital horse racing
platform ZED).
‒ Bought “beer.eth” domain (potentially for around $100k) and NFT “fan
art”.
Source: Budweiser, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, CoinDesk, ZED, U.Today, OpenSea, Ledger Insights, Deutsche Bank Research.
‒ The term Metaverse was first coined by science-fiction Number of corporate documents mentioning "metaverse"
author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow
Crash. 1400 Company Doc Count
‒ To be considered a metaverse, the experience must 1200
Transcript Doc Count
combine “the three P’s:” (i) User presence is 1000
represented; (ii) The world is persistent; (iii) The data 800
is portable. 600
Source: AlphaSense, Bloomberg Finance LP, Deutsche Bank. Note: as of September 5th 2022
‒ Examples of forays into NFTs are often accompanied by venturing into the
metaverse as well. Gamification is important for engagement.
‒ Aside from experiences and extra services, companies like Nike use NFTs
for verification purposes of their physical goods. Such applications bring
real life value for industries where fakes are common, such as luxury goods.
‒ Using NFTs for new revenue streams can be most promising in digital
asset-focussed industries such as music, art, but also where ticketing is
key.
While there are no NFT-specific laws in the major economies globally due to the market’s infancy, if a token is deemed a financial
security, local financial regulations will likely apply. Nevertheless, this is likely not the case for corporate use cases of NFTs where the
tokens serve as a branding tool. Income (capital gains) tax likely applies to creators (investors) in some countries. This likely means
corporate taxes for firms selling NFTs as originators. Yet, there are various complications and uncertainties, such as the physical
location of the seller and whether digital assets are covered by existing tax laws.
EUROPE:
‒ NFTs are likely to be treated as services for tax purposes. Although VAT is likely applicable, there is no clear VAT guidance for
NFTs in most countries. Spain’s tax authority was the first to address NFT sales in the bloc.
‒ So far, NFTs are out of MiCAR’s scope unless they fall into categories covered by the MiCAR, such as “security tokens”. But
new regimes can be created if the authorities see sufficient risks stemming from these new assets. No NFT-specific laws exist in
countries like Germany, France and Italy.
US:
‒ No specific regulatory body oversees NFTs. Whether an NFT can be classified as a security matters but no clear pattern so far.
Most corporate use cases by corporates use NFTs as customer loyalty tools, which may limit application of financial regulations.
‒ Washington is the first US state to publish sales tax guidance for NFTs.
‒ When an NFT is sold by an artist, income tax is likely applicable. For investors, capital gains taxes are likely applicable.
ASIA:
‒ China, Singapore, Japan: no specific NFT regulation unless tokens satisfy local definitions of financial securities.
Source: The National Law Review, European Council, Tokentax.co, Bloomberg Tax, The Art Newspaper, Forbes, Deutsche Bank Research.
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Attribution
I wish to acknowledge the contributions made by Anthony Chaimowitz of dbDIG Primary Research for his invaluable contributions to this report.
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Backtested, hypothetical or simulated performance results have inherent limitations. Unlike an actual performance record based on trading actual client portfolios, simulated results are achieved by means of the retroactive application of a
backtested model itself designed with the benefit of hindsight. Taking into account historical events the backtesting of performance also differs from actual account performance because an actual investment strategy may be adjusted any time, for
any reason, including a response to material, economic or market factors. The backtested performance includes hypothetical results that do not reflect the reinvestment of dividends and other earnings or the deduction of advisory fees, brokerage or
other commissions, and any other expenses that a client would have paid or actually paid. No representation is made that any trading strategy or account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown. Alternative modeling
techniques or assumptions might produce significantly different results and prove to be more appropriate. Past hypothetical backtest results are neither an indicator nor guarantee of future returns. Actual results will vary, perhaps materially, from
the analysis.
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applied in research reports published by Deutsche Bank AG. Further, such ESG scores do not represent a formal or official view of Deutsche Bank AG.
It should be noted that the decision to incorporate ESG factors into any investment strategy may inhibit the ability to participate in certain investment opportunities that otherwise would be consistent with your investment objective and other
principal investment strategies. The returns on a portfolio consisting primarily of sustainable investments may be lower or higher than portfolios where ESG factors, exclusions, or other sustainability issues are not considered, and the investment
opportunities available to such portfolios may differ. Companies may not necessarily meet high performance standards on all aspects of ESG or sustainable investing issues; there is also no guarantee that any company will meet expectations in
connection with corporate responsibility, sustainability, and/or impact performance.