Shopify Plus merchants can now mint and sell NFTs on Shopify, opening up a whole universe of possibilities for brands.
One of the most recent NFT projects to join the Shopify Beta is the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, including digital artwork of NBA Championship Rings. Instead of using an NFT marketplace, the Chicago Bulls created an online NFT store where fans can purchase digital art using credit or debit cards. In the first 90 seconds of launching, the NBA sold out of NFTs, according to Jaz Nejatian, Shopify’s VP of merchant services.
The NFT market has skyrocketed in popularity over the past year. Tech-savvy users have taken to NFT buying, selling, trading and creating very easily and quickly, but the majority of people can struggle where crypto is involved.
According to Shopify, the NFT market has experienced growth of over 700% from Q2 to Q3 in 2021 with an average purchase price of $100+ of most NFTs.
What is an NFT
An NFT is a non-fungible token. A tweet, a JPEG, videos… Digital things that people can buy. Yes, it sounds very odd, stay with us.
“Non-fungible” basically means it’s unique, irreplaceable, one of a kind. As an example, Bitcoin is fungible, it can be traded for another Bitcoin and they’re both exactly the same. Now think of a rare trading card, that’s non-fungible. If you swap it for a different card, then it’s different.
Shopify’s Introduction to NFTs
Shopify’s take on the NFT marketplace and how brands can use their platforms to get involved in new technology has made it so much easier for customers to adopt. For merchants, they can keep everything in-house and not have to go to a marketplace and for customers, they are able to easily purchase NFTs from brands they love – with credit cards, crypto and more.
How do Shopify’s NFTs work?
GigiLabs app allows Shopify Plus merchants to mint and sell NFTs on the Flow Blockchain.
They explained that “the world’s fastest-growing blockchain with over 2 million accounts, over 17 million individual NFTs minted, and more than 10 million secondary market NFT sale transactions.”
NFTs are now being used by artists, musicians, sports leagues, and many others.
NFTs are seen in the same way that Beanie Babies are, or Pokemon cards. As a collectable and they’re worth what the market is willing to pay for them.
The possibilities could be endless…
Smart contracts are where the real value comes from NFTs. Smart Contracts are basically programs stored on a blockchain that run when certain conditions are met. They’re used to automate the execution of an agreement, so participants can be immediately certain of the outcome, without an intermediary’s involvement or time loss.
For example, a brand could commission an artist to create NFT receipts for purchases, if that artist is already popular or becomes popular down the line, the receipts could hold some real value.
Alternatively, what a lot of brands and personalities have done is use NFTs as a purchase for real-world events and opportunities.
