Visa Launching NFT Program to Support Digital Artists
The financial services giant is partnering with Aku creator and former Major League Baseball player Micah Johnson, who once sold $1 million worth of art in one minute.
Oct 13, 2021 at 9:48 p.m. UTCUpdated May 11, 2023 at 5:46 p.m. UTC
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Visa is launching a non-fungible token (NFT) support program to help artists join the digital art space.
- The financial services giant is partnering with former Major League Baseball player turned NFT artist Micah Johnson to build a program that will support artists who want to use NFTs to sell their work, Visa said in a press release.
- Visa will select a small group of creators through an application process and then help them learn about the crypto and blockchain industry.
- “We believe that we are at the beginning of a digital renaissance in the world of art and content creation,” Visa’s Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield wrote on Twitter. “New technologies emerging in the crypto ecosystem, like NFTs, have the potential to lower the barrier to entry for digital creators across the world to build their own small businesses.”
- Johnson joined the digital art space in 2020 and is the creator of Aku, an animated black astronaut character, which has become the first NFT to be optioned for a feature film. Aku was released in February 2021 on Nifty Gateway and sold more than $2 million in NFT tokens in 24 hours.
- “Working together [with Visa], we want to arm creators with the resources they need to stay at the forefront of this revolution,” Johnson said in a statement.
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Helene is a New York-based reporter covering Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin ETFs and crypto exchanges. She is also the co-host of CoinDesk's Markets Daily show. Helene is a graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.