Startups

Visa launches NFT program as it considers the digital art a new form of e-commerce

Comment

Image Credits: hapabapa / Getty Images

Credit card giant Visa has launched an NFT creator program in an effort to bring small businesses into the digital economy.

“We’ve seen rapid growth in the NFT ecosystem over the past year,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, told TechCrunch. “We think NFTs represent a new form of e-commerce.”

The idea of a small business is evolving from the traditional “brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop shops” to include other independent businesses with creators and entrepreneurs who want to build digital-focused companies and harness new tools like NFTs, Sheffield said.

The one-year immersion program, the Visa Creator Program, will bring together a global cohort of creators including artists, musicians, fashion designers and filmmakers the ability to build their businesses with NFTs.

There’s no “hard cap” on the number of creators for the first cohort and all members will have access to Visa clients and a broader network of mentors, Sheffield noted.

“Large merchants and brands are asking every day how they can get involved.” Sheffield said. “The thing that’s so exciting to us about NFTs is we think it lowers the barrier to entry for people to build a business and sell online.”

The traditional way of selling physical goods has a lot of logistics involved, which can be a huge challenge for small businesses and individuals to compete and scale. “NFTs allow someone who’s creative, who’s an artist, who’s talented, to produce a good entirely in a digital way,” Sheffield said.

Micah Johnson, a former Major League Baseball player and current artist behind Aku, was one of the first participants in the cohort. Visa previously announced the partnership in October 2021, but did not disclose that he was involved in the program at the time.

Johnson’s Aku NFTs are based on a character created by Johnson after hearing his nephew ask, “Can astronauts be Black?”

His 10-part collection consists of Black male astronauts posing in a range of elements from helmets covered in spaghetti and meatballs to a simple, sleek white helmet. The Aku NFTs range in price from $1,790 to $37,000, according to its website.

What Yuga Labs wants to build after raising $450M

“I saw firsthand how NFTs can enable artists,” Johnson said to TechCrunch. “I was literally painting in my garage with this idea, this mission, and I’ve scaled it into a global company. I wouldn’t be in the position I am now without NFTs.”

Visa is no stranger to the crypto community and has been an advocate for it over the past 12 months. It previously made headlines for buying a popular CryptoPunk NFT in August 2021, and Sheffield has said that the purchase wouldn’t be the company’s only NFT under its belt.

Aside from collecting NFTs, Visa has built out its crypto team, and in December 2021 launched a crypto advisory practice to help clients and partners consider a deep dive into the space.

“We think that [NFTs] are a fundamental primitive tool that can reshape commerce and create new opportunities,” Sheffield said. “But there’s still a ton of questions around how does it evolve? Which blockchains to use? How do you stand out? How do you reach customers? And so we want to learn as much from the creators as we think they can learn from us.”

Are we entering an NFT downturn?

Going forward, Visa wants to embed itself in these crypto technologies to follow the future of commerce, Sheffield said. “We’re incredibly excited about NFTs,” Sheffield said. “We want every [NFT] marketplace to be able to accept Visa cards because we think NFT’s will exist across many different networks.”

As for next steps? Visa wants to make buying an NFT as easy as it is to buy anything else online, Sheffield said.

“What we’ve found is that the experience today can be pretty difficult and takes multiple steps of going to an exchange, buying cryptocurrency and transferring it over to another wallet. … It’s very difficult for new consumers to come into the space,” Sheffield said.

Aside from this program, the credit card company is looking into other ways to make NFTs more accessible for consumers to purchase and access. There are a “number of initiatives” that Visa is working on to make it easier for consumers to get into the space, but Sheffield did not disclose a timeline for future NFT-focused product launches or services with the company.

“Small businesses and commerce play a really important role in building community, in towns and neighborhoods across the world,” Sheffield said. “It’s a friendly face you see in a local barber [or] local bakery. And now what we’re seeing is creators are using commerce and NFTs to build like-minded communities of people all over the world that are coming together because they share a common set of beliefs, or ideals.”

More TechCrunch

Google said today it’s adding new AI-powered features such as a writing assistant and a wallpaper creator and providing easy access to Gemini chatbot to its Chromebook Plus line of…

Google adds AI-powered features to Chromebook

The dynamic duo behind the Grammy Award–winning music group the Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, are set to bring their entrepreneurial expertise to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Known for their…

The Chainsmokers light up Disrupt 2024

Big news today for LumApps, the French startup that has described itself as an “intranet superapp” with a platform for building and provisioning internal communications and apps for workforces. The…

LumApps, the French ‘intranet superapp,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Featured Article

More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Nubank is taking its first tentative steps into the mobile network realm, as the NYSE-traded Brazilian neobank rolls out an eSIM (embedded SIM) service for travelers. The service will give customers access to 10GB of free roaming internet in more than 40 countries without having to switch out their own existing physical SIM card or…

4 hours ago
More neobanks are becoming mobile networks — and Nubank wants a piece of the action

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50M from MARS Unicorn Fund.

MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

India’s Adani Group is in discussions to venture into digital payments and e-commerce, according to a report.

Adani looks to battle Reliance, Walmart in India’s e-commerce, payments race, report says

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices. The updated wallet…

Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet

A data protection taskforce that’s spent over a year considering how the European Union’s data protection rulebook applies to OpenAI’s viral chatbot, ChatGPT, reported preliminary conclusions Friday. The top-line takeaway…

EU’s ChatGPT taskforce offers first look at detangling the AI chatbot’s privacy compliance

Here’s a shoutout to LatAm early-stage startup founders! We want YOU to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. But you’d better hurry — time is running…

LatAm startups: Apply to Startup Battlefield 200

The countdown to early-bird savings for TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 28–30 in San Francisco, continues. You have just five days left to save up to $800 on the price…

5 days left to get your early-bird Disrupt passes

Venture investment into Spanish startups also held up quite well, with €2.2 billion raised across some 850 funding rounds.

Spanish startups reached €100 billion in aggregate value last year

Featured Article

Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

James Khatiblou, the owner and CEO of Onyx Motorbikes, was watching his e-bike startup fall apart.  Onyx was being evicted from its warehouse in El Segundo, Los Angeles. The company’s unpaid bills were stacking up. His chief operating officer had abruptly resigned. A shipment of around 100 CTY2 dirt bikes from Chinese supplier Suzhou Jindao…

22 hours ago
Onyx Motorbikes was in trouble — and then its 37-year-old owner died

Featured Article

Iyo thinks its gen AI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Iyo represents a third form factor in the push to deliver standalone generative AI devices: Bluetooth earbuds.

22 hours ago
Iyo thinks its gen AI earbuds can succeed where Humane and Rabbit stumbled

Arati Prabhakar, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Women in AI: Arati Prabhakar thinks it’s crucial to get AI ‘right’

AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of. If you’re selling sneakers on an online marketplace…

Doly lets you generate 3D product videos from your iPhone

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has raised $6 billion in a new funding round, it said today, as Musk shores up capital to aggressively compete with rivals including OpenAI, Microsoft,…

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B from Valor, a16z, and Sequoia

Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to use fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to take its EV rental service into Southeast Asia early next year, TechCrunch has…

Indian EV startup Zypp Electric secures backing to fund expansion to Southeast Asia

Last month, one of the Bay Area’s better-known early-stage venture capital firms, Uncork Capital, marked its 20th anniversary with a party in a renovated church in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood,…

A venture capital firm looks back on changing norms, from board seats to backing rival startups

The families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the…

Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and Meta

Like most Silicon Valley VCs, what Garry Tan sees is opportunities for new, huge, lucrative businesses.

Y Combinator’s Garry Tan supports some AI regulation but warns against AI monopolies

Everything in society can feel geared toward optimization – whether that’s standardized testing or artificial intelligence algorithms. We’re taught to know what outcome you want to achieve, and find the…

How Maven’s AI-run ‘serendipity network’ can make social media interesting again

Miriam Vogel, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is the CEO of the nonprofit responsible AI advocacy organization EqualAI.

Women in AI: Miriam Vogel stresses the need for responsible AI

Google has been taking heat for some of the inaccurate, funny, and downright weird answers that it’s been providing via AI Overviews in search. AI Overviews are the AI-generated search…

What are Google’s AI Overviews good for?

When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal, and some are very dependent on where the startups and its backers are located. It’s something we…

The ups and downs of investing in Europe, with VCs Saul Klein and Raluca Ragab

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that…

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversy

Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right…

Deal Dive: Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so

pcTattletale’s website was briefly defaced and contained links containing files from the spyware maker’s servers, before going offline.

Spyware app pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced

Featured Article

Synapse, backed by a16z, has collapsed, and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Synapse’s bankruptcy shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble. 

3 days ago
Synapse, backed by a16z, has collapsed, and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Sarah Myers West, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is managing director at the AI Now institute.

Women in AI: Sarah Myers West says we should ask, ‘Why build AI at all?’