NFT Fest Lugano 2023: digital democratization becomes reality

This is remembered by Roberto Gorini of the Lugano company Noku, which coordinated around sixty technical partners for this NFT Fest 2023: "With NFT Fest Lugano 2023”, summarizes Gorini, “we intended to democratize the latest generation IT applications, proposing not only the technology but also its concrete applications. Among these, gaming, the world of music and art which, thanks to NFTs and blockchain, announce that they are now ready to open up and become more usable by the general public".

Let's stop for a moment and remember this.

The digital universe, which until now has been in the world's breaking news as a phenomenon of the day and promoted to the general public with the language of professionals who, not by chance, have so far defined themselves as "evangelists", delighting the enthusiasm of even the skeptics and indifferent, well: now he is ready to use his own technology to start a dialogue with consumers.

In simple words, the digital universe, evangelists and opponents alike, started from theory and has already bypassed practice, for those who have had the patience to understand it, and now directly proposes itself as utility, generator of services intended for consumption by large numbers.

This is the path that will reconcile the IT world and human needs.

Specifically, blockchain, Artificial Intelligence-AI, and above all NFT, the miniaturization of goods or services in a simple IT receipt, as a whole mean that thanks to digitalisation every activity can now be managed with an artificial logic that presides over the multiplication of information content -creative specific to each individual activity or sector.

Let's make it simple: as far as we are concerned, from now on we will be free to access digital technologies without complications tutorial.

These are the impressions we gathered from some of the speakers of the approximately three hundred events, you read correctly: 300, which animated the five-day calendar of theNFT Fest Lugano 2023.

For example, observes Luca Ambrosini, entrepreneur but also SUPSI researcher, on the subject of cryptocurrencies “the several billion digital coins in circulation today affect a monthly user of only 5 million. It is very little, compared to the 750 million users who use Facebook in the same period of time. Until now, it was not easy for non-experts to approach this market. Now, however, a whole series of technical innovations are about to become available so that even the crypto world becomes accessible to the simple WhatsApp user. Because consumers are more interested in using digital services with a simple click than in the technical-scientific aspects, without any other problems", at any time, for any type of product, amount or service, whatever you want.

Here comes the digital democratization announced in the introduction, revolutionizing a belief which until now we had resigned ourselves to as a fact.

That is: that everything must change, but so that it remains as it was before.

Which, let's face it, however also meant renewing inefficiencies, waste and social disparities.

Instead, NFTs, the blockchain, and the digital recipe book where the therapies to follow are prescribed to innovate our next behavior models, update the will and power to the availability of the individual, and transform the need for exclusive possession into freedom of shared ownership , equally gratifying but with the difference that the latter is now realized in an artificial way.

For example, Lars Schlichting of Lexify, lawyer expert in digital issues, presented at NFT Fest Lugano 2023 www.1541notdm.ch, the most recent of the initiatives followed by his studio: “We take the details of works of great artistic or historical value, tokenize them and transform them into NFTs, i.e. digital matrices: this allows the holder to exploit the single image he has purchased” and the reimbursement of his share starts when the owner of the entire work decides to sell it and make a profit.

In the meantime, the owner of the token, the digital fraction of the image for which he has purchased the right to use, can use it by exploiting it in the metaverse, the digital reality parallel to the one in which we live.

Or to make an event or promotion special, which for example already happens today when an advert is advertised using a company's brand.

To summarize the main topics that NFT Fest Lugano 2023 dealt with, we highlight the conference “Crypto influencers vs institutions” in which, in addition to the aforementioned Roberto Gorini and Lars Schlichting, digital entrepreneurs Tiziano Tridico and Gianluigi Ballarani, Edoardo Beretta, academic at the University of Italian Switzerland-USI, and Pietro Poretti, Director of the Economic Development office of the City of Lugano.

First of all, Professor Beretta began, in principle, the meeting point between digital currencies and the state power to issue money will be the arrival of the Central Bank Digital Currencies-CBDC, the digitalisation of means of payment which for the moment is still object of study at central bank level.

The evolution of this phenomenon will subsequently depend on political decisions and the inevitable selection among the many cryptocurrencies in circulation.

In the meantime, the same conditions and in particular the waiting for decisions by representatives of public administrations also complicate the relationship between digital operators and banks, Lawyer Schlichting recalled: although there is a right to open a relationship, the banks they prefer not to open accounts with crypto-financiers due to the increased supervision and the many costs they would have to bear.

Mediating between innovation and tradition is currently one mission which also involves institutions.

It is challenging, Pietro Poretti recalled, to digitally update consolidated practices that generally work; to achieve this objective, the Municipality of Lugano relies on information and IT education campaigns, to remember that the evolution of technical skills is a global phenomenon and not just limited to the municipal territory.

This, observed Roberto Gorini, is the message with which the city of Ceresio, also thanks to events such as NFT Fest Lugano 2023, addresses international entrepreneurs: “it is work that creates the richness of a territory, and Lugano confirms itself as a city receptive to digital activities”.

Finally, the importance of the relationship between the crypto world and KYC rules, i.e. the transparency of the identity of the beneficiaries, and in particular the vulnerability of personal data which moreover become public precisely when they are archived artificially, was recalled by Tiziano Tridico .

In this context, Gianluigi Ballarani hypothesized, a solution would be the creation of an institution organized and authorized as a bank but which takes care of all the administrative tasks that regulate exchanges and activities between traditional and digital currencies.

However, Ballarani summarized, even in this case the dialogue between practice and theory is just beginning: “technology is a selective and pioneering process”, and only those who understand how it works will have won the innovations towards which global society has already started.