NFTs Have Real-world Use Cases. Not All Are Worthwhile.

A lot is fabricated from whether or not NFTs have actual world use circumstances. However simply because a use case exists doesn’t imply it must be used.

Whereas Fb seeks to carry the digital artwork software of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to its customers, this week noticed two novel NFT use circumstances make waves — however for contrasting causes. Whereas NFTs introduced sufferers possession of their medical data, an Amazon rainforest safety NFT faces questions over the way it acquired the land it’s promoting.

Blockchain healthcare firm MaPay and the Drexel College Faculty of Medication are utilizing the layer-1 blockchain Algorand to retailer affected person medical data as NFTs. At the moment, well being suppliers retailer medical data themselves – resulting in expensive and sluggish paper file retrieval and the sale of sufferers’ medical knowledge.

At a fundamental degree, NFTs retailer and denote possession of digital gadgets with out third events. Placing healthcare knowledge on the blockchain offers sufferers possession of their data — so the pitch goes — and makes retrieval extra environment friendly.

Charles Cairns, vice chairman of Drexel’s medical faculty, believes the medical trade’s future lies in blockchain expertise. 

“This initiative will likely be transformational significantly in underserved areas. It isn’t a query of ought to this be executed. It’s a solution that it have to be executed for the long run in medication,” Cairns stated following the partnership announcement. 

Nemus and its ‘non-fungible territory’

Nemus, an NFT mint tied to Amazon rainforest conservation, is in scorching water after a Brazilian prosecutor introduced an investigation into the corporate’s possession of Amazon land.

Nemus’ CEO Flavio De Meira Penna has a number of entrepreneurial ventures centered on rainforest preservation in Brazil. Nemus claims to personal 100,000 acres of Amazon rainforest and hopes to buy extra with funds from its NFT gross sales. The corporate didn’t reply to requests for verification that it owns the land.

Customers should buy NFTs representing plots of land on a map with the understanding that Nemus will shield the land and its indigenous residents.

Nemus is evident that customers don’t personal the bodily land as a result of constraints of Brazilian regulation, saying the corporate holds onto the land as a substitute. However even that a lot possession could also be wishful pondering.

Prosecutors from the Brazilian Federal Public Ministry introduced final week Nemus has fifteen days to show its possession of the land after Indigenous residents complained of being hoodwinked into promoting land to the NFT challenge.

“The corporate delivered an indication to the villages, written in English, and requested the Indigenous individuals, who can barely learn, to signal paperwork with out clarifying the content material or offering a duplicate,” the prosecutor’s workplace wrote.

Nemus and Drexel Medical Faculty point out an rising frontier in discourse surrounding NFT use circumstances. Sean Stein Smith, an assistant professor at Lehman Faculty who writes concerning the digital belongings, believes debates concerning the usefulness of NFT expertise are already performed out.

“On the purpose of attempting to attend for the ‘real-world purposes’ of NFTs — these purposes are right here,” Smith stated. “‘Are they creating advantages from an financial and broader societal perspective?’ is in the end how any challenge must be judged.”

Nemus didn’t reply to a request for remark.