Visa Inc (V) joins crypto craze, buys Cyptopunk NFT for US$150,000

Payment processing company Visa Inc (NYSE: V) has bought a CryptoPunk NFT for about US$150,000 on Aug 19, the company said on Monday.

CryptoPunk’s journey was featured in The New York Times, Christie’s, and PBS NewsHour. Currently, there are about ten thousand CryptoPunks, first launched in 2017.

Visa, which calls itself an NFT enthusiast, is calling on its patrons to participate in the crypto trade. The company wants to understand the infrastructure required to buy, store, or leverage NFT with this investment, it said.

Visa bought a green-eyed female figurine of CryptoPunk. The transaction was executed through Anchorage, a digital asset bank.   

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The NFT craze has been gaining ground of late, with the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies. But unlike cryptocurrencies, the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are not identical. These are unique. 

In other words, every NFT is different from other NFTs.

What is NFT?               

It can be compared to collectibles like paintings, rare artworks etc. As the value of physical collectibles depends on availability and uniqueness, the same goes with NFTs but in a digital format. NFTs are unique digital assets that people can buy, store, and sell. NFTs could be anything ranging from art, music, picture, tweet to anything digital. Recently, the auction house Christie’s sold an image for US$69 million created by digital artist Beeple.        

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Source – pixabay

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Different views on NFTs

The non-fungible tokens created on blockchain technology have an open ledger same as cryptocurrencies. However, the NFT ownership does not give copyright to the holder. Moreover, these tokens are digital.

But what if these tokens are stolen from the wallet as some instances happened in cryptocurrencies in the past. Therefore, some are skeptical about buying and holding NFTs. However, on the other hand, some consider the NFTs of having tremendous growth potential.

NFTs can be bought or sold in various marketplaces like OpenSea, Grimes’ Choice, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, etc.

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Bottomline

According to OpenSea, CryptoPunks topped the list in terms of volume, floor price, and other statistics among other NFTs in the last 24 hours. Another NFT, called the Art Block Curated, was the only other NFT that closely followed the CryptoPunks.