What NFTs and Digital Assets Mean For Startups and Entrepreneurs

Suddenly, virtual value has become “real enough”

Joe Procopio
7 min readMar 8, 2021

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image by pch.vector

Meme stocks are yesterday’s news. The hype machine on Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) is at full tilt. So is there something of value here for an opportunistic entrepreneur?

After spending a couple months down a serious rabbit hole on NFTs and digital assets, I can give you a qualified definite maybe. I can even tell you where I think the more tangible and realistic opportunities are.

But I’ll also warn you that there is already a great deal of chicanery happening in the space, some of it going down right out there in public.

NFTs aren’t new, but they aren’t Bitcoin either

My entrepreneurial dive into NFTs and digital assets felt a lot like my time in the digital currency and blockchain rabbit hole of 2017. I have never invested in Bitcoin or any kind of digital currency, never had the FOMO. My fascination with both digital currency and digital assets stems from an entrepreneur’s curiosity for emerging technologies and emerging markets.

Back in 2017, I created my own alt coin, weighed the blockchain’s usefulness as a system of record, and poked holes in the privacy and flexibility promises of digital…

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Joe Procopio

I'm a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. AI pioneer. Building TeachingStartup.com. Write at Inc.com and BuiltIn.com. More about me at joeprocopio.com