Celebrity Life

As the popularity of NFTs continues to grow exponentially, we find out more about the phenomenon from some of Hong Kong’s brightest and most entrepreneurial minds.

Calling the rapid development of cryptocurrency and NFTs “overwhelming” is an understatement. They seem to have come in a tidal wave. One day, they were just a whisper in the wind, an exclusive club for the “fintech bros” and Reddit dwellers. We knew they existed, sure, but did we care? Not really. Yet, suddenly, as if overnight, there are advertisements on billboards across the city, friends on social media with new profile pictures of their latest cop or avatar and, perhaps most troublingly, endorsements from various celebrities and public figures about which app or cryptocurrency wallet to use, and which projects to keep an eye on.

They mark a turning point that surely undermines their ethos, for cryptocurrency was never meant to be about big corporate. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Another headache is figuring out where to begin and who to begin with in the journey to deciphering the enigma of this current furore. Anonymity remains high within the community, and it was only after posting a mayday Instagram plea on my feed that I was directed to a friend who was involved in an NFT project meeting happening the very next day.

Arriving in the private members’ club, I was armed with a full night’s research and questions upon questions, mainly to clarify an outrageous number of new vocabularies I’d encountered during my deep dive. I was to meet the team behind Lucky Kittens NFT, a locally launched project featuring Maneki-Neko, a Japanese cat of good fortune typically depicted with one paw raised in a beckoning gesture. Although choosing to remain anonymous for the interview (“In some parts of the world, revealing your identity can be quite dangerous, as people have been robbed or kidnapped if they’re known to be involved in high-profile projects,” they explained) the team was friendly and patient with my queries.

“People have two lives now: their real life and their online life,” said the mysterious co-founders. “People use NFTs to express style on the internet, just like owning a watch or a pair of designer shoes in real life. Our best example is that the traditional art world isn’t accessible to the general public – typically, only the elite can invest. To add to that, there are a lot of fakes that can even fool professionals, but with NFTs, anyone can verify whether a piece is real in under a minute.

“It’s an exciting new industry that’s growing every day. We were into NFTs for a long time, so we brainstormed and decided to make our own. We want to be the first ones to bridge the digital and physical worlds of NFTs with our investors having benefits both in the metaverse as well as in the real world. Hong Kong is a hub for culture, art, technology and finance, and NFTs are the revolutionary technology that combine all these industries.”

Take a look at the news and it’s clear that talk and speculations of a “metaverse” continues to dominate news platforms, the fabled, great coming-together of tech.

“The end goal is to build a brand that’s recognised globally with community members all over the world,” my sources told me. “Right now, NFTs are still mostly being used as collectibles, but in the next few years projects will have more utility and will be tied to many traditional industries, such as gaming, technology, fashion, and retail.”

“Utility”: the new favourite word of the IT crowd. A word that’s repeated many times throughout my interviews the last few weeks. A word I’ve come to learn encompasses a dream that most NFT projects carry: creating need in conjunction with the development of the digital world. A need that Tania (last name redacted) of Moonverse hopes to fill.

“I used to be in the finance world, so I already had an understanding of the crypto market,” Tania told me. “Bridging upon that, I slowly realised that there was a very real, very alert NFT community in Hong Kong. What the public sees is completely segregated from being inside the world; communications in Discord channels with founders and NFT holders alike.

“People tend to ask what they can do with NFTs. If you’re just here to flip, well, there are many other ways to make more money. We wanted to be able to add utility and value to this new world. My partner and I noticed an immense need for NFT projects to go into the 3D realm, which is how the idea of Moonverse was born. Moonverse is a social metaverse that allows NFT projects to build their 3D worlds and interact with others online. Our lead time per project is about two weeks right now. We also have a NFT marketplace within it.”

Asked about celebrity endorsements and “rugging” or “rug pulls” – the crypto term describes a scenario where creators or promoters of a project suddenly disappear, leading to a massive drop in pricing and losses for investors – she was judicious in sharing her thoughts.

“There are countless NFT projects that launch and don’t sell at all, so, of course, there are brands that will choose to work with celebrities or influencers to drive mass adoption in the initial stages. While there are certainly people who don’t like it when celebrities endorse NFTs, it can come with a lot of organic benefits, like a concert just for holders of the project, or even limited-edition fashion products.

“Right now, technology is changing the way we see things. It’s a very new world, but there’s a lot of crypto wealth, so one must always be cautious when minting from new launches. People need to do their research and take proper precautions.”

Minting, the process of obtaining digital assets and storing the items or files in a decentralised database or ledger, is a necessary step prior to an NFT being freely traded within various online marketplaces. This also enables the NFT’s creators to track and collect royalties from subsequent sales.

“The pandemic shifted the amount of time people are spending on the internet and it definitely accelerated the NFT boom, but most big projects started even before Covid,” said Tania. “My other business, Taiko NFT, is a creative agency that aims to connect people and build communities within the digital world. We’ve taken on a few major clients now and it’s been so busy. Right now, my biggest challenge is talent sourcing. It’s hard to find people who are inherently in-tuned to the metaverse and who speak the language. I’m sure this will change in a few years, though.”

One can draw easy parallels between NFT projects and venture-capital investments. The real question remains, however: will this interest and craze continue to boom after the pandemic?

This story first appeared in the February issue of Prestige Hong Kong magazine.

The post NFT Art: Keeping It Unreal appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

If you're looking to get into the NFT game, you should be aware of the best NFT marketplaces.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are hogging the spotlight while altering how we look at assets, investments, artwork and rare collectibles. People can shop for these unique digital creations at dedicated NFT marketplaces.

Built on digital blockchain technology, NFTs are irreplaceable and unchangeable digital tokens in the form of images, audios, GIFs, 3D models, videos and much more. Additionally, NFTs can also be etched in a Metaverse, which is a self-sustaining digital universe that can house many characters and worlds.

NFT transactions are generally done in cryptocurrencies and have even got several A-list celebrities hooked. While Eminem, Amitabh Bachchan and Justin Bieber have launched their NFTs recently, luxury fashion houses like Gucci, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton have joined the hype around their digital art projects. Even auction houses like London-based Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York have sold NFT artworks by digital creators and artists like Beeple, who made a fortune out of it.

Having said that, numerous NFTs are being sold at virtual marketplaces. These are websites that allow trading as well as NFT minting and are mostly based on the Ethereum blockchain.

Explaining the concept of NFT marketplaces, DappRadar says, “These websites facilitate a location where trade takes place and often take a percentage from the transaction for their services. Every blockchain has its NFT marketplace. Some specialise in a certain niche, others embrace every type of NFT on the market. Interacting with an NFT marketplace requires a Web3 wallet while buying (and sometimes listing) an NFT requires the base currency of the blockchain you’re working on.”

Read on to know about some of the best NFT marketplaces out there

OpenSea

OpenSea is one of the leading NFT marketplaces that provides a platform for creators to list their NFTs for sale and buyers or collectors to choose from its unfathomable collection.

Based on the Ethereum blockchain, OpenSea is an NFT platform that offers a simple and secured trading experience. So much so that its success made its co-founders, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, the first NFT billionaires in early January 2022. To date, the marketplace boasts over 80 million NFTs.

Anyone who wants to mint their own NFTs can do so as the marketplace offers huge support by accepting over 150 different payment tokens, though Ethereum (ETH) remains the main one. Wiping out most of its competitors, OpenSea has a massive market advantage for its sheer trading volume and collection. It alone recorded mammoth trading of USD 10 billion since its launch in 2017. With huge fundings, celebrity clientele and numerous NFTs to choose from, a collector might feel like a child lost in a candy store.

The official OpenSea website reads, “A core part of our vision is that open protocols like Ethereum and interoperable standards like ERC-721 and ERC-1155 will enable vibrant new economies. We're building tools that allow consumers to trade their items freely, creators to launch new digital works, and developers to build rich, integrated marketplaces for their digital items.”

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is another most sought-after NFT marketplace in the gaming arena. A dedicated space for gamers of the video game by the same name, it allows players to create, buy and sell axies — game characters and other digital collectibles.

The marketplace has created a base for the gaming world through its creative and user-friendly domain. One of the top and most expensive NFT markets, its market cap goes into billions. Axie Infinity has attracted gaming and crypto-enthusiasts for its futuristic assets.

Such is its wide fanbase and dealings that the Axie marketplace also has a platform where players can interact, develop NFTs and compete with others to earn points and other collectibles, which can also be sold as NFTs.

Rarible

Rarible is one of the oldest among NFT marketplaces and continues to influence the crypto space. Giving users easy minting and trading opportunities, it has an array of NFTs to buy and sell. Rarible is also known for its user-friendly interface, which is used to create NFT art.

Like OpenSea, it is also based on the Ethereum blockchain technology, but the major difference between the two is that to carry out transactions here, one has to use its own token called the RARI token.

While focusing on creating a smooth and secured crypto investment and transaction experience, Rarible has also partnered with a number of leading brands that have launched their NFTs in this marketplace. These include Taco Bell and Cloud software giant Adobe, who teamed up with Rarible to protect the works of NFT artists and creators.

Recently, the marketplace closed funding of over USD 14 million.

Nifty Gateway

A marketplace for the elites, most of the NFT transactions grab instant spotlight as they begin to trend in the crypto market. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Nifty Gateway is an art curation platform that has been instrumental in selling NFT artworks of world-famous artists like Beeple and Grimes.

Nifty Gateway is managed by the parent company and crypto exchange, Gemini, and is controlled by the Winklevoss Twins.

As per their official website, their mission is “to make NFTs accessible to everyone.” One can buy and sell NFTs on the platform as well as list and curate NFT collections. Other than this, the NFTs purchased via this marketplace are also hosted here, which means they are stored in the user’s Nifty account instead of their digital wallet.

Nifty Gateway partners with global names like artist Michael Kagan and is one platform that allows transactions in fiat currency USD.

Decentraland

What was initially criticised for being quite far-fetched and based on metaverse can now safely be called the game changer in the crypto world. The official website says, “Decentraland is a decentralised virtual reality platform.”

In Decentraland, a 3D traversable measurable universe called LAND, the space and all its contents are divided into parcels that are “identified by cartesian coordinates (x,y).” These parcels are permanently owned by community members and transactions can take place using MANA, Decentraland’s crypto token.

The official website of Decentraland further says, “This gives users full control over the environments and applications that they create, which can range from anything like static 3D scenes to more interactive applications or games.”

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Decentraland’s marketplace gives a completely new experience as compared to other NFT trading platforms, as it bridges the gap between real and virtual worlds. Users can buy lands, houses and pretty much all other digital assets that one purchases in real life.

With USD 114,695,018 market cap according to CoinMarketCap as on 25 January 2022, the Decentraland marketplace is graduating to become a big name in the metaverse and revolutionising digital assets.

SuperRare

SuperRare owes its popularity because of its simplistic approach and extremely user-friendly interface. The marketplace is a seamless platform — like an Instagram in the NFT world — where digital artists and consumers can directly interact.

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, all transactions are done through ETH, and the marketplace charges a base fee of 3 percent of the transaction.

The official website assures the digital art exhibited on SuperRare is “authentically created by an artist in the network, and tokenized as a crypto-collectible digital item that you can own and trade.”

According to CoinMarketCap, SuperRare has a market capital of USD 45,320,906, at the time of writing this article.

BakerySwap

BakerySwap is a prominent NFT marketplace, which is also the first automated market maker (AMM) +NFT Exchange on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Transactions are done with its own crypto coin called Bakery token or BAKE which was launched in September 2020.

The BAKE token is a native BEP-20 governance token on the platform. According to a CoinMarketCap report, “Users have the ability to earn BAKE tokens by providing liquidity on BakerySwap, and BAKE holders can use their tokens for governance voting and to receive transaction fee dividends. The BAKE rewards are offered in several liquidity pools, initially including BTC, ETH, DOT, LINK, BUSD and BAKE versus BNB.”

BakerySwap boasts a high market cap of USD 114,169,466 according to CoinMarketCap, as of 25 January 2022.

Foundation

Foundation’s official website says it is a “platform that aims to build a new creative economy—a world where creators can use the Ethereum blockchain to value their work in entirely new ways and build stronger connections with their supporters.”

It allows creators to list their artworks and auction them to collectors who can bid on them in ETH. This enables the platform to enlist all kinds of NFTs that are supported by Ethereum.

A simple, open and hassle-free NFT marketplace, Foundation has already sold NFTs worth 50,239 ETH, which translates to over USD 121, 897, 125.27 since its inception in February 2021, as of 25 January 2022.

Hero and feature image credit: OpenSea/ @opensea/ Twitter

This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia India. 

The post These Are the Top NFT Marketplaces You Should Know About appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.