Visa, the huge payment processor, has bought a so-called CryptoPunk in an unexpected twist. The payment giant announced this on August 23:
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 is CryptoPunk #7610, one of 10,000 unique CryptoPunks (and one of 3,840 female). CryptoPunks are so-called non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) on the Ethereum (ETH) network. Cuy Sheffield, head of the cryptocurrency department at Visa, explains NFTs as follows:
“NFTs are a way of representing ownership of a digital asset, such as an image, video or piece of text. Since the advent of the internet, there has been no way to claim possession of a digital asset, as most files can be copied, pasted and shared indefinitely.
NFTs are unique tokens that can be used to certify the provenance, authenticity and ownership of a piece of digital media. But unlike cryptocurrencies, NFTs are unique. One bitcoin is identical to another, but each NFT is unique.”
Click here to read more about NFTs. CryptoPunks were created in 2017 and were one of the first NFTs on the market at the time. This year the NFT market exploded and several CryptoPunks have already been sold for millions each. Visa has paid a whopping 49.5 ETH for CryptoPunk #7610, worth about $165k.
“We believe NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment and commerce. To help our customers and partners participate, we need a first-hand understanding of the requirements to buy an NFT. We also wanted to show our support for the creators, collectors and artists who are shaping the future of NFT commerce. Finally, we wanted to collect an NFT that symbolizes the excitement and opportunity of this particular cultural moment.”
Said Sheffield on why Visa bought the CryptoPunk. He calls the purchase “the start of the NFT trading era.” Sheffield has high hopes for the future of NFTs:
“We expect a huge range of new use cases in the coming years. The ability to track and leverage a digital asset in multiple environments can open up exciting new opportunities in ticket sales, gaming, music, art and more.”
Tron CEO Justin Sun Bought Another NFT Yesterday of a rock for more than half a million. In June, another CryptoPunk sold through auction house Sotheby’s for a whopping $11.8 million.
–
