VISA Dabbles Into the NFT Market By Purchasing A CryptoPunk NFT for $150,000

24. Aug 2021 Posted by Akolkar B on News

Payment giant VISA, is one of the influential major companies taking a leap of faith into the NFT trend. On 23 Aug, Monday, it bought "CryptoPunk7610," one of 10,000 unique digital collectable characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The CryptoPunk acquisition was carried out with the help Anchorage Digital for a whopping $150,000 paid in Ethereum (ETH).

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique. Unlike BTC and other cryptocurrencies, they are not interchangeable.

The CryptoPunk NFTs have created a massive rage in the market recently. The CryptoPunks are basically 24x24 pixel art images generated algorithmically. Most are punky-looking guys and girls, but a few rarer types are mixed in: Apes, Zombies, and even the odd Alien. Every punk has a profile page that shows their attributes and ownership/for-sale status.

On Monday, Cuy Sheffield, head of the crypto at Visa, said, "We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce." In order to aid their current partners and clients participate, he said, "we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT."

NFTs can represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files. However, access to any copy of the original file is not restricted to the buyer of the NFT. While copies of these digital items are available for anyone to obtain, NFTs are tracked on blockchains to provide the owner with proof of ownership that is separate from copyright.

Going ahead, VISA sees itself as key players in the NFT-commerce. Sheffield said CryptoPunks had become a "cultural icon for the crypto community." He said, "With our CryptoPunk purchase, we're jumping in feet first."

Sheffield says it's "not surprising" that Visa is looking into "how we can apply our expertise in enabling seamless and secure digital payments to make NFT-commerce accessible and useable for buyers and sellers".

The firm is looking into how it can help businesses use NFTs to harness customer engagement and is "working on some new concepts and partnerships that support NFT buyers, sellers, and creators". Furthermore, he emphasised by saying, "This is just the beginning of our work in this space."

The NFT market value tripled in 2020, reaching more than $250 million. During the first quarter of 2021, NFT sales exceeded $2 billion. Advocates and supporters of NFT say this makes NFTs scarce, driving up their value.