Visa is looking for entrepreneurs in the fashion, arts and entertainment fields to get them involved in its new NFT-related project.
Visa in the NFT world
Two days ago, Visa unveiled the Visa Creator Program, a new offering that could help digital artists, musicians, fashion designers and filmmakers build their businesses through Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
According to a statement from the US credit card company, this is a very interesting slice of business, considering that it counts around 50 million artists of various kinds, with a total turnover of $100 billion.
Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa’s cryptocurrency business development division, said in a statement:
“We’ve been studying the NFT ecosystem and its potential impacts on the future of commerce, retail and social media. Through the Visa Creator Program, we want to help this new breed of small and micro businesses tap into new mediums for digital commerce”.
Earlier this year, a survey prepared by Visa indicated that around 24% of SMEs would already be ready to accept cryptocurrency payments in their current business. And according to the survey, 59% of the companies that took part in the survey already use digital payments only.
Programme objectives
Visa first launched its programme in October, as a kind of test run, with former professional baseball player Micah Johnson, who created the entertainment and media company Aku.
The programme plans to help the chosen entrepreneurs learn more about the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, into which Visa looks set to invest heavily in the near future.
In this way Visa will support the entrepreneurs and at the same time will be able to study on the ground how NFTs can impact the real economy and what its most appropriate uses can be.
The benefits for SMEs
Last August, in a lengthy blog post on the company’s website, on the occasion of Visa’s purchase of an NFT from the CryptoPunk collection for around $150,000, it was stated:
“NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy and lower the barrier to entry for individual creatives to earn a living through digital commerce. NFTs are starting to usher in a new form of social commerce that empowers both creators and collectors”.
The blog specifically referred to the possible future link between NFTs and SMEs, specifying how:
“NFTs could also fuel small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in powerful new ways. The rise of ecommerce has made it possible for SMBs to sell online and reach customers around the globe. But they still have to produce and ship physical goods, which can have high upfront costs. NFTs give small businesses an opportunity to harness public blockchains for producing digital goods—which can be delivered instantly to a crypto wallet. We can envision a future in which your crypto address becomes as important as your mailing address”.
Visa has long had many credit cards that allow payment and money transfer in cryptocurrencies, five of them even using cashback. This is a tangible and unmistakable sign that the company, as well as its historic rival Mastercard, have been looking at the world of cryptocurrencies with increasing interest for some time.
