The crypto market is cooling down from its peak, but data about the NFT market shows that it's still doing very well. For Ethereum based NFTs there's been ~13M in sales in the past 7 days. Sources:

- https://nonfungible.com/market/history

- http://cryptoslam.io/

Similar story to Bitcoin, transactions were the first use-case. Later came smart contracts which expanded the number of various applications that can be developed with blockchain.

Collecting art was the first big use-case. More individuals and companies are focused on providing long-term value through utility. One example is NFTs that can unlock access such as someones time, places real or virtual, and communities in a similar way to Discords for patreon members. The art aspect is also evolving into more gamedev themes like artist designed NFTs for digi-physical fashion, avatars, pets, skins, etc.

More virtual worlds will compose these blockchain artifacts together, adding more context to them such as: Audio NFTs becoming background music, text NFTs becoming stories and scripts, 3D NFTs can become props, set environments, avatar NFTs become characters and NPCs, and wearable NFTs getting distributed through achievements.

All that said, I'm excited for some pullback because it reminds builders to tune out the noise and stay focused on building.