Sorare founder: 50% of Dapps will run on ZK-Rollups... NFT/gaming/sports predictions for 2022
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Sorare founder: 50% of Dapps will run on ZK-Rollups... NFT/gaming/sports predictions for 2022
At Sorare, our argument has always been that NFTs can bring the cultural mainstream to Web3—specifically by leveraging passion for sports.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: Nicolas Julia, Founder of Sorare
Translation: TechFlow Friends
2021 was a landmark year for NFTs and Sorare.
If you had asked me this time last year, I must admit I couldn’t have predicted the kind of breakthrough NFTs would achieve this year. NFT sales surged past $10 billion in Q3 alone, and we expect total NFT sales for 2021 to approach $25 billion. Behind these numbers, two powerful narratives shaped the year:
1) Art: The art world discovered NFTs through Beeple’s $69 million NFT auction at Christie’s, shattering the myth that digital art cannot be owned or valued like traditional art. At the same time, pop culture found NFTs with PFPs (profile pictures, mainly on Twitter), such as Cryptopunks and Bored Apes (BAYC), along with countless other fun projects now available on OpenSea—proving even average consumers see value in owning digital artworks, opening new channels for creators and artists to earn money on the internet.
2) Gaming: The incredible success of Axie Infinity (with over 1 million daily active users) and the rise of “play-to-earn” gaming shook the entire industry. Instead of paying for in-game items with no real value, NFTs empower gamers by enabling them to freely trade and use their game assets across the internet.
At Sorare, our thesis has always been that NFTs can bring the cultural masses into Web3—especially through passion for sports. We aim to build the next major sports entertainment giant by helping billions of sports fans own their games and become stakeholders instead of mere spectators.
As we enter 2022, I find it useful to reflect on our goals. It helps us define our roadmap and think about how to build a better sports gaming ecosystem for everyone. Below are my top predictions for what will happen in the three industries where Sorare operates: NFTs, gaming, and sports.
1. NFTs Unlock Experiences
Non-fungible tokens can represent anything: artwork, in-game items, event tickets, social experiences. Next year, we’ll see more NFTs integrated into everyday life, helping owners unlock physical-world experiences.
Today, if you own a Bored Ape, you’re part of an exclusive club that grants access to certain events. On Sorare, if you own a LaLiga Ticket Edition NFT, you can attend a LaLiga match in person. If you own Gerard Piqué’s LaLiga ticket edition, you could attend El Clásico as a VIP, tour the stadium, and get behind-the-scenes access. In fact, I predict we’ll see a major sporting event—be it the Super Bowl, UEFA Champions League final, or FIFA World Cup final—use NFTs as tickets within the next year.
The opportunities are endless, and I hope NFTs will help bridge the digital and physical worlds—from sports via Sorare to music, concerts, and many other industries. We plan to invest in this space and build NFTs that unlock real-world sports experiences.
2. By year-end, 50% of decentralized apps will run on ZK-Rollups
Rollups are poised to become the scalability solution for all blockchains. As user numbers grow, scalability remains one of the biggest barriers to mainstream blockchain adoption. Rollups are hybrid solutions—they process transactions off the main “Layer 1” blockchain but still retain some data for each transaction on-chain. First implemented on Ethereum, I expect all blockchains—including Solana, Flow, Cosmos—to begin adopting rollup architectures to achieve greater privacy and scalability, which are prerequisites for any application targeting billions of users.
More and more decentralized application (“dapp”) communities are already moving to rollups, but I believe 2022 will be the breakout year for ZK technology. This is a long-term infrastructure trend that will help bring blockchain applications to hundreds of millions of users.
3. Traditional game studios will enter the NFT space
With the rise of crypto gaming, I expect to see more moves from traditional game studios into the NFT world. This could mean top-tier studios launching NFTs within games played by tens of millions of users, or increased M&A activity between game studios and Web3 gaming ventures. We may also see more Web3-native studios like Sorare investing in traditional studios to help further establish interoperability between games or acquire talent. I believe crypto-native game studios will be able to grow faster than others.
Going forward, I think we’ll see traditional game studios develop greater interest in experimenting with interoperable games, bringing external IPs into their worlds, and exploring whether there’s a path toward interconnected gaming with players at the center of the experience. This may take years, but interoperability is worth pursuing—for both gamers and developers. Being able to transfer earned or purchased game assets from one game to another gives players more value, while for game studios, every new gameplay use case increases the base asset’s appeal and liquidity across the internet.
4. NFTs will become the foundation of the metaverse
If much of our future lives are spent in global, virtual, interconnected worlds (the metaverse), then NFTs will be the primary building blocks of everything in that world.
As centralized versus decentralized metaverses evolve, users will increasingly recognize the value of truly owning their assets. In centralized metaverses, content and games are built by and belong to the central entity behind the platform. In decentralized metaverses, anything created by individuals belongs to those individuals. The difference will be clear. I hope more social platforms adopt NFTs as they transition toward the metaverse, which requires a healthy, cross-platform economy.
5. The rise of NFTs will help grow fanbases for women's sports
Historically, women’s sports have been underrepresented, undervalued, and overlooked. We believe NFTs can significantly accelerate the growth of women’s sports by giving fans direct ways to support the teams and athletes they care about, while also attracting broader sports and NFT communities who understand the value of these collectibles.
At Sorare, we’ve been fortunate to witness how high community engagement has helped leagues around the world expand their fan bases—while typical sports fans mostly cheer for their home team, Sorare players invest in their favorite athletes worldwide as they build their fantasy teams. We hope to see similar engagement growth here, with athletes participating in women’s sports they may have previously ignored. At Sorare, we’re committed to shifting the tide by investing in women’s sports and actively promoting female participation in the three industries we operate in: NFTs, gaming, and crypto.
6. Top 10 sports organizations will develop sophisticated NFT strategies
2021 saw significant excitement around cryptocurrency in sports—it became the fastest-growing sponsorship category in the industry. However, cryptocurrency and NFTs are different. And NFTs aren’t a market; they’re a technology.
In 2022, that initial excitement will deepen as sports organizations gain a stronger understanding of NFTs’ power to connect with fans, create value, and unlock experiences. With this deeper understanding comes hiring experts (think heads of digital assets), but also greater discernment between different sports-crypto business models—and identifying legitimate players versus unproven ones.
7. Most NFTs will go to zero
Yes, 2021 was a wild year.
Yes, most people still think NFTs are just a fad.
Yes, like any breakthrough technology such as the internet, there’s irrational exuberance.
As we dive into the possibilities offered by Web3—the decentralized, ownable, programmable web—we see hundreds of new projects emerge every day. But it’s important to remember that Web3 isn’t about specific NFTs, but about what you can do with them—whether it’s granting access, social capital, or utility.
I expect most NFTs to go to zero—just like most .com companies did—but hype doesn’t negate underlying trends. If you look back at the .com bubble, you’ll find Amazon among the survivors. As our friend Alexis Ohanian explained, NFTs allow you to own a piece of the internet. Ultimately, the internet is a cultural machine and a connector of communities. NFTs are now part of culture. While not every NFT will survive, we will certainly see projects emerge that retain value for centuries to come.
While some of these predictions may seem bold, I believe it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” If 2021 taught us anything, it’s that the adoption speed of NFTs has surpassed even industry insiders’ expectations—and I can’t wait to see what 2022 brings.
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