'NFTs Can't Scale' in Current Form, Say Superduper Co-founders

By Tim Hakki

“NFTs can’t scale!” according to the founders of Web3 entertainment firm Superduper during a talk at this year’s NFC summit in Lisbon. 

Company co-founders Joe Carnell and Dom Smith later sat down with Decrypt and clarified that they do, indubitably, believe NFTs can scale “to hundreds of millions of people, we just think in its current format, it won’t.”

When the pair say “scaling” they don’t mean the technical side of it–for instance, boosting the transaction throughput of a given blockchain–rather, they mean the process of onboarding NFT users by the millions. 

Their ambitions are hardly modest, either. On the startup’s LinkedIn, Superduper describes its “mission to onboard the first billion users.” 

However, they say there are three main considerations to getting there. First, they consider how NFTs can disrupt the entertainment industry. Secondly, there’s user experience (UX), and third, public perception.

“I think quite a few builders now are waking up to the fact that we need to build something that sustains, that's here during the bear market that thrives during the bull,"  Carnell said. "And that’s not just looking at the input—what's new—it’s looking at the output, what's the real value? What do people actually care about?”

Superduper's brand connection

The Superduper co-founders have also been working with streaming titan Spotify through another of their Web3 entertainment franchises: Overlord, a “story-driven gaming ecosystem” connected to the firm's Creepz NFT project. 

In February this year, Overlord joined Spotify’s token-gated playlist pilot, allowing holders of its NFTs to trial a unique crypto integration on the streaming platform. 

“The first thing we recognize is that no one knows what they're doing. But that's a good thing," Smith told Decrypt. "Because everyone's exploring the technology and trying to figure out how they can drive the most value to audiences and brands over the long term.”

He adds that it ultimately goes back to “that dirty word 'revenue,' how can you drive more productization to the companies, which in turn benefits users because you reinvest into product and experience?”

In terms of next steps, the pair say their team is at full capacity “of 45 to 50 people” and is going “very deep” on short-form social media content for Twitter, Tik Tok and Instagram, and building long-form content “for platforms like Netflix.”

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