The multinational e-commerce company – Shopify – has allowed its users to mint and redeem non-fungible tokens on its platform. To provide this opportunity, the company has partnered with GigLabs – an organization specializing in offering tools to work with NFTs.
Shopify Enters The NFT Universe
Tobias Lütke – Chief Executive Officer at the company – revealed the new service on his Twitter account.
The initiative will be known as the NFT Beta program. Initially, it will only be available to merchants based in the United States of America.
The collaboration with GigLabs allowed NFT enthusiasts to purchase digital collectibles by various settlement methods, including Shopify payments, Shop Pay, cryptocurrencies, credit or debit cards, the statement said.
“Plus, customers can easily claim their NFTs via email and add them directly to their portfolios,” the Shopify team added.
The company clarified that customers are able to mint non-fungible tokens on various platforms such as Ethereum, Polygon, Near, and Flow by teaming with its partner applications.
Paul Budnitz – founder and CEO of entertainment company Superplastic – described Shopify’s platform as “amazing.” He said it helped his company and his partner Christie’s create a “hugely successful NFT drop for Janky and Guggimon.”
Even though these are Shopify’s first steps in the NFT space, the company is already part of the cryptocurrency bandwagon. In 2020, after collaborating with BTCPay, it enabled its customers to pay in bitcoin instead of fiat currencies.
The rise of the NFT industry in 2021
Non-fungible tokens are unique crypto tokens that exist on a blockchain and cannot be replaced. They can represent works of art and even track real world assets, like a house or a car.
Although NFTs were not invented this year, they managed to garner the attention of people and companies from all types of industries – from athletes and musicians to investors and politicians.
Not too long ago, OpenSea – the premier peer-to-peer NFT marketplace – surpassed the $ 10 billion mark in transaction volumes of all time. Currently, that number stands at over $ 13 billion as it has been accumulated by over 1.2 million traders.
OpenSea’s success should be considered a significant one since its total volume trading for the entire 2020 was just $21 million.
Another statistic showing the gradual growth of the NFT industry is the Google search for phrases such as “NFT” and “Buy NFT”. These reached a new all-time high almost a month ago.
