New Delhi: WazrirX, crypto exchange owned by Binance launched the South Asia’s first non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace with 15 creators on Tuesday. The creators from multiple categories like digital artists, muralist photographers, canvas artists, space 3D artists, street artists, and visual artists will be able to sell their work on this marketplace.
Each NFT is unique and cannot be traded like cryptocurrencies as they are identical to each other and can be used to enable commercial transactions. For instance, one Bitcoin is equal to another Bitcoin or Re 1 is equal to another Re 1 but due to their uniqueness, NFTs cannot be a medium of transactions.
However, they can now be used to represent real-life assets like artwork. Some celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton have recently their work through NFTs.
The NFT marketplace by WazirX has been launched in the beta phase and the company said that it “will empower artists, creators, and collectors across India and abroad to create and trade unique digital assets that represent art, music, videos, collectibles, in-game articles among others.” The marketplace will charge $1 for minting NFTs and won’t have any listing price. The company also announced that they are extending 50,000 WRX tokens to their community.
At the moment, the marketplace is “heavily focused on Indian-origin artists” globally and the selection of artists has been divided into two sections – Spotlight and Discover. Some of the artists on platform are Vimal Chandran, anonymous street artist Tyler, wall mural artist Sneha Chakraborty, mixed media artist Ishita Banerjee from Montreal, automotive photographer Arjun Menon, etc. The platform announces 50 selected day artists everyday in the Discover section of the market. The market can be used by anyone to buy or sell their NFTs by using WRX tokens, for now every available item is sold by their fixed prices.
Sandesh B Suvarna, Vice President of the WazirxX’s NFT marketplace said, “More artists and collectors across the globe are today tapping the power of NFTs. By doing so, they are realizing the wide-ranging benefits of using smart contracts to dignify and secure digital art ownership for every artist and collector by providing them with an opportunity to create wealth. NFTs ensure the exclusivity of ownership and can be seen as a way to digitize artwork and other collectible items.”
