CryptoPunk 7610 Goes To Visa For $165,000. What Next For NFTs?

Visa, one of the world’s largest card payment organizations, has purchased an NFT for over $150,000, signaling that NFTs are here to stay.

Visa, one of the world’s largest financial services companies, has shelled out a cool sum of over $150,000 to purchase an NFT from the CryptoPunks family called Punk #7610. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) can broadly be explained as a form of digital art with foundations set on a blockchain network, the same tech that powers the world of cryptocurrencies. An NFT can be a weird painting, collection of images, music, video, game file, or even a social media post. Essentially, it’s a digital asset, which means an infinite number of digital copies can float around the internet even after someone has paid a few thousand dollars, or millions, for an NFT.

However, when someone purchases an NFT, a digital signature is created on the blockchain to certify the ownership of that digital asset. And unlike a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum, an NFT is not interchangeable with another NFT. That is where the term “non-fungible” comes from. This is because each NFT has a cryptographic hash at its heart saved on the blockchain, and each asset is authenticated using a digital signature to track ownership.

Related: World Wide Web Original Code NFT: What You Need To Know

So far, NFTs have been a pop culture phenomenon, with memes, game memorabilia, and concept arts being purchased predominantly by anonymous buyers or celebs looking to make a splash. This has led many to dub it as a passing fad, until VISA, the world’s second-largest card payment organization, purchased an NFT called CryptoPunk 7610 — an NFT from the CryptoPunk collection of pixel art images. The NFT’s design may have many questioning why Visa would spend $150,000 for a piece of digital art that looks as if it was made in MS-Paint. However, the implications of this purchase might launch NFTs into the mainstream.

Visa’s NFT Purchase Could Help Make Digital Asset Sales Mainstream

Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa, mentions in A VISA Q&A that NFTs will have a key role to play in segments such as retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce in the foreseeable future. The Visa executive further noted that the underlying technology behind the NFT ecosystem will open new opportunities in domains such as music, gaming, ticketing, and art among others. Because of this, the company’s interest in the NFT segment appears to have some strategic motivations behind it. In the first half of 2021, the global NFT sales passed the $2.5 billion mark, which is a staggering growth compared to the $13.7 million for the same interval for the previous year.

However, it’s not just the cumulative billions that make NFT a lucrative business on an industrial scale. NFTs are also beneficial for artists, allowing them to make millions for digital artwork. For example, Beeple’s Everydays: the First 5000 Days was sold for $69.3 million and Cryptopunk #7804 went to an unknown buyer for $7.6 million. The Doge meme NFT also sold for $4.40 million, while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s famous first tweet was auctioned for $2.9 million towards a charitable cause. Some well-known concept artists such as BossLogic have accumulated a fortune, with his work being highly sought-after in the comic-book and pop culture-loving community. It appears that like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are also inching closer to mainstream recognition and acceptance.

Next: What’s A Non-Fungible Token & How Do NFTs Work?

Source: VISA

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