The future of NFTs in DeFi: A conversation with Aavegotchi's Jesse Johnson

One of his early efforts, Bullionix, was among the first platforms to offer NFTs backed by real-world commodities - specifically, gold.

With Aavegotchi, Johnson is moving beyond meatspace assets and taking asset-backed NFTs into a whole new realm: decentralized finance.

Using a blend of NFT token standards including ERC-721 and ERC-998, Aavegotchi feature a combination of traits that determine their value, including random traits determined at their minting, the value of aTokens staked, and NFT-backed "Wearables" - 'child' NFTs that can be programmatically tied to each Aavegotchi.

Moving forward, Johnson aims to bring Aavegotchi deeper into the DeFi fold, mixing NFTs and this explosive, emerging financial vertical in exciting new ways.

After speaking with him, one thing became clear: this is just the beginning for both NFTs and Aavegotchi.

Cointelegraph: How do NFTs fit into DeFi in a meaningful way? An NFT can create digital scarcity and it can be individualized, but what unique properties of NFTs as smart contracts will be specifically useful and important for DeFi?

If there could be standard NFTs that are accepted across platforms as a certain value or almost like badges that you earn at one platform and are accepted at another, you'll start to see NFTs used for integrating all these platforms in very interesting ways.

NFTs can do the job better than any one particular set of smart contracts or DApp, because with the contracts you're reliant on a certain UI or dashboard.

"Five years from now we're gonna be on a whole different level with real NFTs of consequence, which is one way I talk about it - NFTs that really have an impact on your bottom line, and they're more than just a collectible."New Money, New Users.

What are NFTs going to look like when there's a whole lot more money sloshing around?