Every new phenomenon in the digital realm comes with a degree of volatility that is always accompanied by a very significant question mark. As long as the market finds ways to reinvent and attach itself to any new trend and innovation, a gold rush is always in the books.
It certainly felt that way when the NFT craze started back in 2021 – more on that later in this article. What became even more apparent is that sustainability takes more than just a series of celebrities who make investments based on what’s hot. Their business advisors may be in tune with how the market shifts and goes, but the market remains of the masses.
As such, we stare at a certain that allows digital collectibles to have meaning in today’s day and age. In an age of questionable intellectual rights, widespread duping, and an erosion of the traditional sense of digital property, such collectibles are an interesting topic of conversation, at the very least.
The personal value of collecting
The psychological ramifications of this phenomenon are a bit of a mystery in a scientific sense. It’s not necessarily a lingering effect with provable (or even probable) cause. However, it can still have some significant connections to several aspects of our psyche, education, or even a purported interest.
One of the most interesting perspectives presented in a Coinweek article on the psychology of collecting is the idea of residual hunter-gathered reflexes. This idea comes from none other than Carl Jung, the father of archetypes.
His perspective basically talks about the idea of gathering as much as possible in order to stock up and be ready to survive over the course of scarcity. It’s really interesting if you think about it, especially if one were to collect items of perceived later value.
Another perspective is the FOMO one. This is very applicable in the case of celebrities who want to grab as much of something as possible in order to have something to show for their wealth, taste, and bragging rights. Having a hypercar from all the luxury manufacturers is a form of indulgence of the highest degree.
However, collecting, in a purely sentimental sense, is all about the love for having tokens of different kinds. In the case of digital collectibles, the idea seems to revolve mainly around market value.
NFTs – the craze and its aftermath
The NFT, otherwise known as a non-fungible token, is the flagship denominator of the idea of certifiable ownership in a digital sense. Given that its existence is verifiable and validated by a digital system that has its own connectivity, the ownership status is distinguishable within its own online ecosystem.
As such, the advent of the blockchain boom has created this narrative about ownership of art, or intellectual property, being a new-age hot commodity for the collector’s market. One of the most interesting concepts attached to generative art is the idea of combining several parts to generate an artistic expression.
The blockchain has already proven times and times again that even its currencies are not above the market volatility chamber. When the bubble of NFTs started conflating in 2021, it seemed like a natural step in the ascension of blockchain-adjacent tech trends.
This is how art auctions selling Bored Ape Yacht Club pieces of digital art started showing up, selling for exorbitant prices. This is why you had people like Eminem, and Justin Bieber have a BAYC art piece on their social profile pictures. Everybody got on the train, and the market rose from circa $80 million in 2020 to over $17 billion at the height of the NFT craze.
However, all kinds of rug pulls and other usual practices have led to a monstrous collapse of the NFT market after the bubble burst in 2022. By May 2022, the NFT market lost 90% of the value it collected over the course of 2021.
Collectibles as consumables & incentivization
Another digital enterprise that is akin to collecting is the idea of gathering some sort of boosters. This can happen in varying senses because it showcases that the snake keeps eating itself in a postmodern sense.
The Ouroboros of consumer culture sees consumables as collectibles for the sake of consuming better. You get a series of 10 free spins no deposit and consume some casino entertainment without pay in order to continue to play, hoping for more free spins down the line.
This is also applicable in gaming, where temporary boosters give you the ability to increase your quality of experience and productivity within said environment. What ends up happening is the fact that many players hoard these boosters for the sake of activating them at a later rate, only to forget about them or feel like using them is a waste.
At some point, there may be a free, general booster that incentivizes gameplay with compounding boosts. It’s then when a player would pop their collection and gain a significant advantage through extreme progress. Once that progress slows down due to a lack of boosted gaming, the player gets back to collect in order to ensure that they can cash back into that period of extreme progress.
This how collecting becomes a periodical idea of consuming gameplay in order to never miss out. The FOMO factor comes back, ‘helping’ a collector collect for the ability to collect even more down the line.
The psychology of game design indeed uses digital collectibles as a very powerful tool.
Conclusion
In our humble opinion, collecting should be a passion that should be as separate from hoarding as possible. The act of doing so digitally may not have the same nuance as physical collections since they have a lower symbolic value. However, we encourage you to pursue every passion you have as long as you do it responsibly and sensibly!