Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming more and more popular. NFT sales volumes on specialized marketplaces are experiencing strong growth in the first half of 2021. The NFT market is around $ 2.5 billion in June 2021.
What drives this process? Big brands are embracing the trend, and tech giants are helping to grow.
E-commerce giant Alibaba is driving the NFT trend in China.
Taobao is part of the Alibaba group of companies, which is one of the top e-commerce websites in China. It was recently revealed that Taobao will include NFT Arts in its Maker Festival.
NEAR Protocol has partnered with game developers Web3Games and Chinese artist Heshan Huang. The goal of the collaboration is to sell their "real estate" based on non-fungible tokens (NFT) during the Taobao Maker Festival. As you might guess, this festival is sponsored by Alibaba. It will take place later in 2021. The idea behind NEAR Protocol is that buyers will be able to place their order on Taobao and pay in CNY.
It's not even a trailblazer in Alibaba's range of NFT projects.
The South China Morning Post is a print publication that is part of the Alibaba Group of companies. It was recently revealed that the newspaper has tokenized its 118-year-old collection of media assets in NFT format. The newspaper's management noted that it wants actual historical records and genuine historical assets to be immutable due to the blockchain opportunities.
The Italian national football team won the European Championship earlier in July 2021. In addition to the main trophy, they received the first NFT cup in history. Simultaneously, Alipay, a subsidiary of Alibaba and the official partner of the tournament, presented 1,600 copies of the aforementioned NFT Cup to the fans who answered best in a special quiz.
Alipay launched two NFT-based digital artworks in May 2021. Art owners see them on the checkout page of the Alipay app when they shop. The new opportunity attracted a lot of public interest, and Alipay sold about 16 thousand copies of tokens in a few hours of the sale.
Nifty's Inc. created the social platform NFT for artists and possible buyers in collaboration with Warner Bros.
Nifty's Inc. Is the first social media platform about NFT. They recently announced a partnership with Warner Bros. For the release of Space Jam 2, the companies originally linked NFT technologies and famous characters from the film for advertising. Everyone can buy Looney Tunes characters as collectible unchangeable tokens.
To summarize. The popularity of NTFs is growing, and the number of options for their use is growing too. This has a beneficial effect on the NFT market. Companies from the entertainment, gaming, media, and sports industries all hit the trending news on this topic. When the tools to centralize NFTs emerge, traditional financial institutions and tech giants can follow suit.