Brandless by design: NFTs and the digital nomad economy in Web3

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2025.1711802

This article examines how “brandless by design” strategies in Web3, particularly among digital nomads and creators of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), reshape consumer behavior, market intermediation, and governance. Using a structured thematic synthesis of interdisciplinary academic and gray literature, we integrate five analytical lenses: affordances (provenance, programmability, composability, and token-gated access), signaling (credibility through on-chain histories and disclosures), consumer identity (the extended self in digital ownership and display), parasocial interaction (attachment without human embodiment), and governance (smart contract terms, platform policies, and community charters). Three primary themes emerge. First, creative autonomy and disintermediation, as NFTs enable direct creator-to-consumer exchange and programmable provenance. Second, engagement and authenticity, as communities cohere around transparent access and shared utility rather than traditional brand logos. Third, sustainability and decentralization, which highlight tensions around environmental impact, intellectual property, cultural legitimacy, and consumer protection. Cross-cutting subthemes, including parasocial credibility, accessibility and cultural sensitivity, and brand control versus co-creation, explain why brandlessness can appear simultaneously intimate and precarious. We propose a conceptual framework that links brandlessness to decentralized identity and on-chain governance, clarifying when provenance signals, token-bound permissions, and community norms substitute effectively for legacy brand cues. The review concludes with implications for practice and policy, such as standardized licenses, clear disclosures, participatory design, on-chain royalty registries, and interoperable memberships that balance value capture with oversight. Future research should prioritize cross-cultural adoption, sustainability auditing that incorporates off-chain infrastructure, and mixed-methods designs combining on-chain telemetry with ethnography and experiments to assess trust, authenticity, and wellbeing.