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It’s been just revealed that the NASDAQ-listed firm The9 reported that it is entering the NFT craze. They are reportedly planning to launch a trading and community platform in the fourth quarter of this year.
As the online publication CoinDesk reveals, the platform is dubbed NFTSTAR. It will feature artwork by global celebrities in sports, entertainment, art, and other industries, the Shanghai-based firm said in a press release.
A wholly-owned Singapore subsidiary will run NFTSTAR, and The9 President Chris Shen will be the new platform’s CEO, according to the same recent reports.
It’s also been revealed that The9 tapped Gagan Palrecha, former vice president of operations at Dapper Labs, to be NFTSTAR’s COO.
Dapper Labs is the studio behind Cryptokitties and NBA Top Shot, and another issue worth mentioning is the fact that NFTSTAR is open for pre-registration.
Visa enters the NFT craze
Visa has been making headlines for a while now in relation to the crypto space. Now, it’s been revealed that the financial services platform announced the purchase of CryptoPunk, which is a popular NFT product.
NFTs are similar to virtual certificates that people are using to claim digital ownership of digital goods such as images, videos, or pieces of text.
CryptoPunk is one of the first NFT projects created on the Ethereum blockchain.
“It’s a collection of 10,000 24×24, 8-bit-style pixel art images of male and female characters with unique characteristics such as hairstyle, accessories, and more,” as the online publication the Daily Hodl notes.
Check out Visa’s announcement below.
Over the last 60 years, Visa has built a collection of historic commerce artifacts – from early paper credit cards to the zip-zap machine. Today, as we enter a new era of NFT-commerce, Visa welcomes CryptoPunk #7610 to our collection. https://t.co/XoPFfwxUiu
— VisaNews (@VisaNews) August 23, 2021
It’s also important to mention the fact that Visa will not be holding directly the NFT themselves, but it used the crypto custodian Anchorage Digital to hold its digital artwork.