Due to the unique requirements of NFT marketplaces and their rapid growth, the world is starting to notice. NFT websites face the same optimization problems as visual-heavy brands. What's the best way to help them manage this? Here is Doron Sherman's opinion as VP of Developer Relations at Cloudinary.
The trading volume for non-fungible tokens (NFT) increased from $41,000,000 in 2018 to $2.5 Billion in 2021. This is a 60-fold increase in just three years.
NFT startups continue raising large investment rounds. However, sites hosting NFTs still face the same challenges as other visual-heavy websites, such as travel and entertainment. How can companies bridge the gap in visual experience for NFTs? Let's look at some ways sites can be made more responsive to this rapidly growing market. Companies need to focus on hosting the new digital formats as technology is constantly evolving.
Understanding The New World of NFT Planning
Imagine a stock broker's website that is slow to process trades. The broker's inability to process trades quickly means that traders are left watching helplessly as the value of the security they want to trade fluctuates.
Similar risks must be managed by NFT sites. Contrary to popular belief an NFT is not the owner of the file. An NFT file is simply a file that identifies the digital asset or image owner. It's a contract between two people to purchase and sell shares of a company via a bank. However, it is not necessarily a financial transaction between the two parties. However, unlike stocks, traders aren’t looking to buy or sell a stock collection of another person.
NFT marketplaces must ensure that their website is always available. Although this may seem obvious, the complexity of NFT marketplaces' uptime requirements is magnified when images are served up. Due to heavy traffic from other parts of the world, a site may experience an increase in traffic at 3:00 a.m. in the U.S. NFT sites should use a multi-content delivery system (CDN) to ensure availability. When one network is down, the site automatically connects to another provider to continue processing transactions.
While availability and uptime are essential, maintaining a competitive edge is not enough. Delivering a great user experience and maintaining a competitive edge is even more important.
Optimized Media: Planning NFT Delivery
High-fidelity image-based commodities require a unique challenge. Websites with so many images can have significant bandwidth and loading speed issues.
This is especially important as images have a significant impact on SEO and Google Core Web Vitals scores (CWV). CWVs, a set of metrics that Google created and are used in establishing SEO rankings, are a part of the algorithm. These include figures about how long it takes a photo to load on a website and how long it takes to allow someone to click on any element on the site.
Anyone who wants to take advantage of the NFT gold rush must be able to accurately measure these metrics. To ensure a seamless and engaging visual experience, the right tools and measures must be in place. This is the foundation of this market - it is deeply visual and experiential. Hosting sites won't be able to compete in a market where competition is increasing.
Web teams require assistance to optimize media assets for fast, high-quality delivery to all devices. Automation is the solution, especially when you consider the amount of assets NFT marketplaces have to manage at any one time. Developers can now focus on other things and not the tedious task of optimizing the site's experience by making one-off code modifications.
Flawless NFT Visual Experience
These content delivery issues are essential for businesses who want to be considered in the new era. Intelligently automating media solutions can offer rich media management capabilities as well as a delivery platform. This provides brands with a content-aware and intelligent visual-media platform that allows marketers and developers to work together across the media cycle and reduces time to market.
While NFTs remains a wild west in terms both of regulation and consumption, one thing seems certain: they will not be restricted to images. They will likely grow into richer media like video, 3D, and AR/VR assets. NFT marketplaces, and anyone who wants to be part of the action, need to make sure they have the tools and resources necessary to manage their websites and offer a unique visual experience. This is where we need to focus - on building experiences that will do justice to this emerging market.