Research on Non-Fungible Token (NFT) business models wins “Excellent Paper Award”

Alex Zarifis honoured at the JEBDE Academic Conference on Electronic Business & Digital Economics.

Dr Alex Zarifis from the School of Business of the University of Nicosia and a research affiliate of the CCAF at the University Cambridge, received the ‘Excellent Paper Award’ at the 2nd JEBDE Academic Conference on Electronic Business & Digital Economics held on 29 September, 2022 for his work with Prof. Xusen Cheng on ‘The business models of NFTs and Fan Tokens and how they build trust’.

The JEBDE Academic Conference on Electronic Business & Digital Economics was held in China with over 300 participants. The international conference included research on digital transformation and the digital economy.

While there is a lot of interest in NFTs it is not clear what final form they will take. This innovation will have difficulties reaching a wider audience until more clarity is achieved on two main issues: What exactly are the NFT business models, and how do they build trust.

The findings of this research (Zarifis & Cheng, 2022), show that there are four NFT business models: (1) NFT creator, (2) NFT marketplace, selling creators’ NFTs, (3) company offering their own NFT (usually a fan token) and (4) computer game with NFT sales. The four business models build trust by utilizing the ability of an NFT to prove irrefutable ownership and provenance, and by building a community and trust between the collectors and other stakeholders.

Reference

Zarifis A. & Cheng X. (2022) ‘The business models of NFTs and Fan Tokens and how they build trust’, Journal of Electronic Business & Digital Economics, vol.1, pp.1-14. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/JEBDE-07-2022-0021