(Asian News Hub) – India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange WazirX will launch a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace that will feature exclusive artwork by popular photographers, artists, and mixed media professionals from India and other South Asian nations today.
NFTs are a unique digital representation of an art form living on a blockchain.
While Ethereum is globally the most popular blockchain for minting NFTs, WazirX will use its parent company Binance’s blockchain technology.
NFTs shot to fame after a series of high-profile sales this year, including one by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey of his first tweet for over $2 million, and the landmark purchase of an NFT artwork for over $69 million by Vignesh Sundaresan at a Christie’s auction in March.
Interestingly, collectors can purchase NFTs on WazirX’s marketplace only through the platform’s native token WRX which has a supply cap of one billion.
One WRX token is worth Rs 104 currently.WazirX will charge a 5% service fee on the sale price and creators will get 95% of the sale proceeds.
The added use case for WRX, a utility token, will lead to its “international expansion”, WazirX founder Nischal Shetty told ET in an exclusive interaction.
WazirX will charge a 5% service fee on the sale price and creators will get 95% of the sale proceeds.
The added use case for WRX, a utility token, will lead to its “international expansion”, WazirX founder Nischal Shetty told ET in an exclusive interaction.
“Depending on how well the platform does and how the adoption is, I am sure it will reflect on the prices. But I think what is more important is to bring in use cases because, in the long term, a token is more useful when you can use it in multiple ways,” Shetty said.
In its beta phase, the platform will launch with a “fixed price” model and give artists the ability to add a royalty fee of up to 15% on the resale of their work.The ability to earn through single artwork in perpetuity has piqued interest among artists to create NFTs in India and globally.
“Secondary sales are a game-changer. Artists can end up making 10 times the amount than the initial sale price,” said Amrit Pal Sigh, 31, an avid collector and creator of the NFT art form.
Singh has been an artist for nine years and started minting his artwork in February. He counts exposure to a global audience among other benefits.
Like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, NFTs have come under the scanner globally for the environmental costs associated it. In using WRX token on Binance Smart Chain, the platform is eliminating electricity cost, and the per-transaction cost for minting and purchasing the NFT is under $1.
WazirX’s NFT marketplace will add the “auction” model in the near future as it plans to onboard big names from the music and creator space.The phased launch of the platform will begin with 15 popular artists and creators whose work will be displayed in the ‘Spotlight’ category, which has been vetted and curated by WazirX, and a ‘Discover’ tab in which 50 creators will be added every day from a whitelist of 300 creators. In its beta phase, the platform will support images and video files of up to 100 MB.
WazirX will let the artist decide the terms and conditions of sale.
In the case of painters and creators who work with physical objects, they have an option to tie the NFT with the physical sale of the artwork.
WazirX has also committed WRX worth $50,000 as giveaways and cashback for the collectors who engage on the platform to buy their NFTs.
It received 15,000 applications, of which 11,000 were creators, said Vishakha Singh, Advisor, NFT Marketplace, WazirX.
The collector applications were mainly global, and the creators’ participation was across age groups.
