What If NFTs Never Became Popular?

The Actual History

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, emerged as a technological concept in 2014 when Kevin McCoy minted "Quantum," a digital artwork, on the Namecoin blockchain. This represented the first instance of on-chain provenance for a digital artwork, though the term "NFT" wasn't yet in use. The technology began to take more recognizable form in 2017 with the launch of CryptoPunks by Larva Labs and CryptoKitties by Dapper Labs. CryptoKitties, in particular, gained modest attention when a digital cat sold for $140,000, causing congestion on the Ethereum network.

The foundational technical standard for NFTs on Ethereum, ERC-721, was proposed in late 2017 and formalized in 2018. This standard provided a framework that enabled unique digital tokens to be created, owned, and transferred on the Ethereum blockchain. Despite these developments, NFTs remained a niche interest within cryptocurrency communities through 2019 and early 2020.

The transformative moment for NFTs came in late 2020 and early 2021. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced people online and crypto markets surged, NFTs suddenly captured widespread attention. The catalyst for mainstream awareness was Christie's auction of Beeple's "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" in March 2021, which sold for an unprecedented $69.3 million. This auction legitimized NFTs in the art world and ignited a market frenzy.

Throughout 2021, the NFT market exploded. Collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club launched in April 2021 and quickly became cultural phenomena, with individual apes selling for millions of dollars. Celebrities, brands, and major institutions rushed to mint their own NFTs. Trading volume on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, surged from approximately $21 million in 2020 to over $14 billion in 2021.

The market peaked in January 2022 with monthly trading volumes exceeding $5 billion. However, beginning in February 2022, the NFT market began to cool significantly. By mid-2022, coinciding with a broader cryptocurrency market downturn, trading volumes had fallen by more than 90% from their peak. Despite this correction, NFTs had fundamentally altered conversations about digital ownership, art, and the future of the internet.

By 2023, the technology had begun to mature beyond the speculative mania. Major brands from Nike to Disney had integrated NFTs into their business models. The music industry explored NFTs for royalty distribution, gaming companies developed NFT-based assets, and metaverse platforms incorporated NFTs as foundational elements of their virtual economies.

Through 2024 and into 2025, NFTs have gradually become more integrated into everyday digital experiences, though with less hype and more practical utility. Major platforms like Instagram, Twitter (now X), and Facebook have incorporated NFT integration, normalizing the technology for millions of users. While no longer commanding the astronomical prices of the 2021 boom, NFTs have established a permanent place in the digital economy, influencing conversations about ownership, authenticity, and value in the digital age.

The Point of Divergence

What if NFTs never became popular? In this alternate timeline, we explore a scenario where non-fungible tokens remained an obscure technological concept limited to niche cryptocurrency communities, never breaking through to mainstream awareness or adoption.

The point of divergence in this timeline occurs in early 2021. In our actual history, Christie's auction of Beeple's "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" for $69.3 million in March 2021 served as the watershed moment that catapulted NFTs into mainstream consciousness. In this alternate timeline, several plausible divergences could have prevented this breakthrough:

One possibility is that Christie's, a 250-year-old auction house known for its conservative approach to art, might have decided against hosting the Beeple auction altogether. Senior executives, concerned about reputation risk and the legitimacy of digital-only artwork, could have vetoed the proposal. Without the legitimizing effect of a traditional auction house's involvement, NFTs might have remained trapped in crypto obscurity.

Alternatively, the auction could have proceeded but with dramatically different results. Perhaps technical issues during the bidding process undermined confidence in the technology. Or maybe the final bid came in at a modest $1-2 million rather than the attention-grabbing $69.3 million. Without the shocking price tag that made global headlines, media coverage would have been minimal and short-lived.

A third possibility involves timing and market conditions. If the Beeple auction had coincided with a significant cryptocurrency market crash rather than a bull market, investor enthusiasm might have been dampened. The narrative of NFTs as valuable digital assets would have been undercut by falling prices across the crypto ecosystem.

Most plausibly, the divergence might have resulted from a combination of factors: less aggressive promotion by platforms like OpenSea, absence of celebrity endorsements, and increased regulatory scrutiny raising concerns about the environmental impact of blockchain technology. Without the perfect storm of favorable conditions that propelled NFTs in our timeline, the technology might have simply failed to resonate with mainstream audiences at this critical juncture.

In this alternate timeline, as March 2021 passed without the explosive growth of NFT adoption, the technology settled back into relative obscurity, becoming just another specialized application within the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem rather than a cultural phenomenon.

Immediate Aftermath

Cryptocurrency Market Development

The absence of the NFT boom would have significantly altered the cryptocurrency landscape throughout 2021 and 2022:

Ethereum's Growth Path: Without NFTs driving demand for Ethereum (the blockchain hosting most NFT activity), Ethereum's price appreciation would have been less dramatic. The network's gas fees—which reached astronomical levels during the NFT frenzy—would have remained more stable and affordable. This might have actually accelerated Ethereum's adoption for other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications by keeping transaction costs manageable.
Alternative Layer-1 Blockchains: Platforms like Solana, Avalanche, and Flow, which gained significant traction partly due to their NFT capabilities and lower fees compared to Ethereum, would have seen more modest growth. Solana, in particular, might not have achieved its dramatic price appreciation in 2021 without its NFT ecosystem drawing new users.
Market Capitalization Shifts: The overall crypto market cap would likely have been 15-20% lower at its 2021 peak without NFT-driven enthusiasm bringing new retail investors into the space. This missing segment of speculative capital might have resulted in a less severe correction in 2022, as the market would have been built on more fundamental use cases.

Digital Art and Creator Economics

The digital art world and creator economy would have evolved quite differently without the NFT revolution:

Digital Artist Compensation: Without NFTs providing a mechanism for digital artists to monetize their work directly, more traditional models would have persisted. Platforms like Patreon and Substack would have likely seen accelerated growth as the primary means for creators to generate income directly from supporters.
Gallery and Museum Digitization: The urgent push for museums and galleries to develop digital strategies—accelerated by both the pandemic and NFT competition—would have proceeded more gradually. Traditional art institutions would have maintained their gatekeeper status in the art world for longer.
Generative Art: The explosion of generative art projects like Art Blocks might never have occurred. This would have significantly delayed mainstream recognition of algorithmic and code-based art forms, which gained legitimacy through NFT markets.
Digital Ownership Concepts: Without NFTs demonstrating market demand for digital ownership, the concept would have remained theoretical rather than becoming a tangible business model. Digital goods would have continued to be primarily licensed rather than "owned" by consumers.

Tech Industry Response

The technology sector's evolution would have followed a different trajectory without the NFT phenomenon:

Meta's Strategic Direction: Meta (formerly Facebook) might not have rebranded and pivoted so dramatically toward the metaverse in October 2021. Without NFTs demonstrating market appetite for digital goods and virtual environments, Mark Zuckerberg might have pursued a more gradual transition or focused on different strategic priorities.
Web3 Investment: The massive influx of venture capital into Web3 projects—exceeding $30 billion in 2021 alone—would have been significantly reduced. Without NFTs serving as the "gateway drug" to blockchain applications for many investors, funding would have remained concentrated in more traditional cryptocurrency and DeFi applications.
Corporate Adoption: Major brands from Nike to Disney, which rushed to develop NFT strategies throughout 2021-2022, would have maintained conventional digital marketing approaches. Their experiments with blockchain technology would have been more limited and less public-facing.
Gaming Industry Integration: The gaming industry's exploration of blockchain integration would have progressed much more cautiously. Without the demonstrable revenue potential shown by NFT projects, major gaming companies would have been less motivated to incorporate blockchain elements into their products.

Media and Cultural Impact

The cultural conversation around digital assets would have unfolded quite differently:

Cryptocurrency Perception: Without the colorful and often controversial world of NFTs drawing mainstream attention, public perception of cryptocurrency might have remained more focused on Bitcoin as a store of value and financial instrument rather than expanding to encompass digital culture more broadly.
Environmental Concerns: The highly publicized environmental critiques of NFTs, which highlighted the energy consumption of proof-of-work blockchains, might not have gained as much traction. This could have resulted in delayed pressure on Ethereum to accelerate its transition to proof-of-stake.
Digital Inequality Discourse: The conversations about wealth concentration and access inequality in digital spaces—sparked by multi-million dollar NFT sales during a global pandemic—would have taken different forms or potentially been less prominent in public discourse.

Long-term Impact

Evolution of Digital Ownership and Property Rights

Without the NFT boom, the concept of digital ownership would have developed along significantly different lines:

Slower Legal Recognition: The legal framework for digital property rights would have evolved much more gradually. In our actual timeline, courts and legal systems around the world were forced to rapidly consider questions about the nature of digital property due to high-value NFT disputes. In this alternate timeline, these precedent-setting cases would not have occurred, leaving digital property in a more ambiguous legal territory through the mid-2020s.
Platform-Centric Ownership Models: Without blockchain-based alternatives demonstrating market viability, platform-centric models of digital goods would have remained dominant. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon would have maintained stronger control over digital content ecosystems, with consumers primarily licensing rather than owning digital goods.
Digital Estate Planning: The development of systems for handling digital assets after death—accelerated by high-value NFT holdings in our timeline—would have progressed much more slowly. Digital inheritance would have remained primarily focused on social media accounts and traditional digital content rather than expanding to include tokenized assets.
International Standards: Global standards for digital property rights, which began developing partly in response to cross-border NFT transactions, would have remained fragmented and underdeveloped. This would have implications for international commerce in digital goods, potentially limiting growth in this sector.

Metaverse and Virtual World Development

The trajectory of virtual worlds and metaverse platforms would look substantially different:

Corporate Metaverse Strategies: Without NFTs demonstrating commercial viability for digital goods, major tech companies would have pursued more cautious metaverse strategies. Meta's massive $10+ billion annual investment in Reality Labs might have been scaled back significantly, focusing more on augmented reality than fully immersive virtual worlds.
Virtual Land Economics: The concept of scarce virtual land, which became central to metaverse platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox, would likely not have gained mainstream traction. Virtual worlds would have continued to expand based on user demand rather than artificial scarcity models.
Avatar Identity and Portability: The push for portable digital identity and avatar systems across platforms would have progressed more slowly. Without NFT standards demonstrating the value of cross-platform digital assets, tech platforms would have maintained more siloed approaches to user identity and virtual goods.
Commercial Real Estate in Virtual Spaces: The rush by major brands to establish virtual storefronts and experiences would have been significantly delayed. Without NFTs creating a speculative market for virtual land, commercial adoption of metaverse spaces would have focused on marketing experiences rather than permanent virtual infrastructure.

Artist and Creator Economy Transformation

The economics of digital creation would have followed a distinctly different path:

Platform Dependence: Digital creators would have remained more dependent on centralized platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify, with fewer options for direct monetization. These platforms would have maintained stronger negotiating positions against creators without the competitive pressure from NFT marketplaces.
Royalty Mechanisms: The innovations in automated royalty distributions pioneered by NFT smart contracts would not have entered the mainstream. As a result, secondary sale royalties for digital creators—now common in our timeline—would have remained rare or non-existent.
Creator Collectives: The explosion of creator DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and collectives, often formed around NFT projects, would not have occurred. This would have limited collaborative creation models and collective bargaining power for independent artists.
Traditional Art Market Integration: The traditional art world would have maintained a clearer separation between digital and physical art markets. The hybridization we've seen in our timeline—with major galleries and museums embracing digital artists who emerged through NFT platforms—would not have occurred at the same scale or pace.

Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Evolution

The broader cryptocurrency ecosystem would have developed quite differently without the NFT catalyst:

Ethereum's Technical Development: Without the pressure of NFT transaction volume, Ethereum's scaling solutions and transition to proof-of-stake might have proceeded on a more gradual timeline. The network congestion caused by NFT trading in 2021-2022 created urgent demand for scaling solutions like rollups and sidechains.
Layer-2 Scaling Solutions: Projects like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, which gained significant traction partly due to NFT activity seeking lower fees, would have developed more gradually. Their combined market capitalization would likely be 60-70% lower by 2025 in this alternate timeline.
Financial NFTs and Tokenization: Without the cultural breakthrough of art NFTs, the development of more utility-focused applications like real estate tokenization, carbon credits, and financial NFTs would have progressed much more slowly. These applications, now beginning to mature in our timeline, would still be largely theoretical concepts.
Institutional Blockchain Adoption: Major institutions' exploration of blockchain technology would have remained more focused on private, permissioned chains rather than engaging with public networks. The NFT boom helped legitimize public blockchains for traditional institutions in ways that might not have occurred otherwise.

Regulatory Landscape and Governance

The regulatory approach to digital assets would have followed a different trajectory:

Targeted Regulations: Without the high-profile excesses of the NFT market drawing regulatory attention, crypto regulation might have remained more focused on exchange operations and stablecoins rather than expanding to include digital collectibles and art.
Consumer Protection Frameworks: The development of consumer protection frameworks specifically for digital assets would have progressed more slowly. In our timeline, numerous NFT scams and rug pulls created pressure for regulatory clarity around digital collectibles.
Tax Guidance: Tax authorities worldwide would have had less incentive to develop specific guidance for digital collectibles. The complexities of NFT taxation—including creation, sales, royalties, and transfers—drove substantial regulatory clarification in our timeline that would be absent.
Cross-Border Standards: International coordination on digital asset standards, partially driven by the global nature of NFT markets, would have been less developed. The resulting regulatory fragmentation would potentially limit global digital commerce in this alternate timeline.

Expert Opinions

Dr. Amanda Chen, Professor of Digital Economics at MIT, offers this perspective: "The absence of the NFT boom would have significantly altered the evolution of digital property concepts. In our actual timeline, NFTs forced us to rapidly confront fundamental questions about what it means to 'own' something that exists only in digital form. Without this catalyst, I believe we would still be working primarily with licensing models rather than true ownership models for digital goods in 2025. The mass experiment in digital scarcity that NFTs represented—however flawed—accelerated our collective understanding of digital property by at least a decade."

Michael Brooks, Founder of the Digital Art Archive and former Christie's digital art specialist, provides this analysis: "If NFTs hadn't captured the public imagination in 2021, I believe the digital art world would be dramatically different today. The explosion of NFTs created an unprecedented distribution system that allowed thousands of digital artists to support themselves through their work for the first time. Without this system, we'd likely see digital art continuing to struggle for legitimacy in traditional art spaces, with far fewer artists able to make a living through purely digital creation. The democratization of art sales we've witnessed would be significantly delayed, with traditional gatekeepers maintaining much stronger control over which artists receive recognition and compensation."

Dr. Sarah Woodson, Director of Blockchain Studies at Stanford University, comments: "The NFT phenomenon, despite its speculative excesses, served as a crucial bridge between abstract cryptocurrency concepts and tangible applications that resonated with non-technical audiences. Without this bridge, I believe blockchain adoption would be at least 30% lower in 2025 than what we're currently observing. More importantly, the demographic profile of blockchain users would be substantially different—more heavily weighted toward finance and technology professionals rather than the diverse creative communities drawn in through NFTs. This would have profound implications for the types of applications being developed and the overall direction of Web3 technologies."