A look at the major evolution and rise of the NFT in Singapore – Wired PR Lifestyle Story

In recent years, Singapore has embraced blockchain technology. It is not surprising that the country is witnessing some of the most exciting developments in the NFT space.

Although NFTs have been floating around the Internet since 2014 really In early 2021 he took the world by storm. They recorded a sales volume of about $ 20 billion during the year. This was an increase of over 20,000 percent compared to 2020.

In fact, the largest NFT purchase in 2021, valued at $ 69.7 million, was worth more than half of the previous year’s sales.

This tremendous growth led to investors pouring money into the industry. NFTs have gone from being perceived as an internet meme vehicle to an untapped potential gold mine.

As 2022 begins to find its basis, it seems that more and more businesses are exploring this ever-changing space. Here are the main developments of last year’s NFT, which indicate what is stored in the metaverse for the future of Singapore.

Entrepreneur S’porean spends $ 69.7 million on Beeple NFT

March 2021 was a milestone when the NFT finally broke up and took over the mainstream media.

Digital artist Beeple has auctioned off an NFT collage of 5,000 works of art. He started the project in 2007 and is committed to creating a new work of art every day.

The latest product, called “Daily – First 5,000 Days,” sold for $ 69.7 million. This made it the most expensive piece of digital art ever sold.

Although anonymous at the time of purchase, the buyer decided to show up shortly. Singapore activist Vignesh Sundaresan he told CNBC That he bought NFT because it would remain as a significant piece of art history. He was willing to bid even more if needed.

The sale of Beeple NFT was announced around the world and paved the way for NFT to become a global phenomenon today.

NFT markets form part of the closure of shopping malls

Although the pandemic caused the closure of physical stores and shopping malls, NFT markets had no problem getting out of the ground.

In July 2021, the Singapore NFT market raised $ 13 million for Mintable in Series A financing. Investors include Mark Cuban, a millionaire businessman and NBA team owner; Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP cryptocurrency; and MetaPurse, a NFT investment fund sponsored by Vignesh Sundaresan (which bought Beeple NFT).

Mintable has launched NFTs in collaboration with companies such as BAPE and CNBC. The best-selling NFT collection on the platform was released alongside NFL quarterback Trevor Lawrence, which sold for about $ 230,000.

Brytehall was a Singapore NFT platform launched in 2021. It was created to incorporate luxury art and fashion into the metaverse.

The platform held its first auction in December in collaboration with the US-based bicycle company Specialized. ‘enishi-E: The Living Bike’ was sold for $ 50,000.

Founded by the founders of Media Publishares, Brytehall was also responsible for launching Vogue and Esquire’s NFT collections in Singapore.

The latest edition of Singapore’s NFT scene is ARC, an exclusive digital community created by Kiat Lin, the son of Singapore millionaire Peter Lim. ARC plans to launch its own iteration of the metaverse in the near future.

Singapore’s first large-scale NFT exhibition is held at a Freeport

In November 2021, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinha teamed up with the Appetite Research Center to host the country’s first NFT exhibition.

He had a title Right-click + Save, a reference to everyone’s first skepticism about NFTs: “Buy a .jpeg? But I just clicked and saved. ”

The exhibition explored the evolution of digital art and NFT culture through the major works of creators such as Andy Warhol, Beeple and Refik Anadol.

With deliberate irony, Right-click + Save They were taken to Le Freeport.

Freeport is a very private storage facility and is used to facilitate the trade in valuable goods such as art and jewelry. They exist as special economic zones where ordinary tax and customs rules do not apply. These facilities have been accused of money laundering.

NFTs have also received similar criticism. Because their value is entirely subjective and their usefulness is not always obvious, skeptics have often written NFTs as a money laundering tool.

Printed media ensures that it will last forever

After all the time they spent writing about NFTs, the Singapore media could not capitalize on the trend themselves.

In August 2021, Vogue Singapore released a collection of 40,000 mystery boxes on Binance. Each box is worth $ 20 and contained one of 10 different works of art depicting an astronaut exploring a famous city.

The entire collection sold out overnight and was one of Binance’s most mysterious mystery box sales ever.

A year later, Vogue re-entered Singapore NFT with a collection of works by celebrities such as Shavonne Wong and Chad Knight. The collection also had an exclusive partnership with luxury fashion house Balmain.

Separately, The Straits Times raised more than $ 15,000 in charity earnings from its debut NFT collection. The highest-priced sale featured an image of a Straits Times column called ‘Part of the Owner Metaverse’.

The collection also included a work entitled ‘The permanence of cats’ – a parody of Salvador Dali’s ‘The persistence of memory’, all clocks representing cats.

Esquire Singapore made the NFT wave at the end of the year in partnership with The Dematerialised. The title of Life Tobyato released a collection of NFT sneakers designed by Singapore artist. Exploring the figital concepts in the metaverse, the rarest NFT sneakers were sold along with physical replicas.

Local artists find a new creative outlet

2021 was a particularly difficult year for Singapore artists. At the height of the pandemic, a survey by Milieu Insight revealed how much the country valued creative activities.

Not much, it came out. 71% of respondents believe that the artist’s work was essential in all of them. Those who were creative were the first to be released, while the business was experiencing a period of decline.

For some founders, NFT provided an outlet to pursue their passions.

Singapore artist Chanel Lee left the corporate world to release her NFT collection, which includes 7,600 works of toasted art.

Alan Seng left a new business and teamed up with art student Marc Yap to launch digital business cards. Their ‘Dark Zodiac’ collection earned over a million dollars in the first hour after its release.

Fashion photographer Shavonne Wong also started selling her 3D art as NFT and sold it for over $ 60,000 in 2021.

Are there any NFTs left?

It’s hard to imagine an industry worth more than $ 40 billion disappearing overnight. Over the past year, NFTs have resisted the wrath of skeptics and come out on top.

Today, the usefulness of these tokens has grown beyond the art of the collection. NFTs are being used as bonds, governance tools and virtual real estate.

It’s hard to predict the future of a space that’s so dynamic, or what shape NFTs might take next, but it feels safe to say that they will be for a long time to come.

Featured Image Credit: Reuters

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