NFTs for Brands presentation at retail commerce and subscription conference, SubSummit

On September 22, Niftmint CEO & Founder Jonathan G. Blanco, spoke at SubSummit.

About the Conference

The SubSummit Conference is an annual conference dedicated to the subscription economy for DTC retail and eCommerce brands. This years event was held in Dallas, TX, along with virutally.

NFT Presentation at SubSummit

Niftmint Founder and CEO, Jonathan G. Blanco, recently spoke at the SubSummit Conference to a room full of brands, retailers, and eCommerce professionals about "What is an NFT?", how Brands have gotten involved so far with NFTs, and how Brands can sell NFTs on their channels using Niftmint.

Read recent article "What is an NFT?"

Watch complete NFT for Brands presentation below

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About Niftmint

Niftmint integrates with Brands to simply mint, sell, and custody NFTs on their websites or apps without needing to manage cryptocurrency or a crypto wallet. The thought of selling NFTs can be overwhelming for brands due to cryptocurrency, minting, and custody, which why Niftmint handles this all on behalf of the Brand and their customer, allowing the transactions to occur via credit card.

If you are a Brand or partner who like to discuss your NFT strategy and begin selling NFTs, please visit Niftmint.com and fill out the Contact Us form.

What is an NFT?

By now you have likely heard the term NFT, but what exactly is it?

Once obscure and understood by only a fraction of crypto enthusiasts, NFTs have slowly made their way into the public conversation with mainstream media sharing stories about the digital artist known as Beeple selling his NFT artwork for $69 million at Christie's; Visa purchasing a CryptoPunk for $150,000 as an artifact and to show their bullishness on cryptocurrency, and sports stars like Stephen Curry, Von Miller, Dez Bryant, and LaMelo Ball being part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

If you haven't seen NFTs in the news, you've likely encountered discussion on social media from friends, family, or work colleagues mentioning an NFT they purchased in their post, changing their profile picture to an NFT avatar, or sharing their thoughts on the future of NFTs.

If you still don't know what an NFT is, no need to worry. We will be sharing a comprehensive look at the logic, technology, and business opportunities of NFTs.

What does NFT mean? Does it stand for something?

To best understand an NFT, let's break it down into all of its parts and describe what each element means in and out of the NFT use case.

Fungible

Let's break that down further starting with the meaning of the word fungible, which is something that is not unique but rather replaceable in nature due to its likeness or comparableness to something else for example a dollar or even a Bitcoin. The value of a dollar is the same as the value of any other dollar. If you had a dollar and exchanged your dollar with someone else's, you'd still have a dollar. Same with Bitcoin, if you swapped your Bitcoin with someone else's Bitcoin the same value would be assessed. You are no better or worse off for the exchange.

Non-Fungible If fungible items can easily be replaced or exchanged and represent the same value, non-fungible items are the opposite, as in they are unique or one-of-a-kind. Items that could be categorized as non-fungible include art, music, trading cards, memorabilia, a house, or land. Each item is unique and likely has varying values. Even if two items had the same value, they would still be non-fungible as they are different or if part of a series would have identifying markers (ie. 1 of 10).

Token

A token in regards to cryptocurrency serves as an asset or unit of measure with a monetized value often residing on a blockchain. Tokens can be used to pay for use of the underlying platform or to exchange value on the network.

While ETH is a coin backed by the Ethereum blockchain, the most common cryptocurrency token is Ethereum's ERC-20 token which is a standard for building and minting Smart Contracts. Ethereum's token standard allows for anyone to create their own ERC-20 tokens.

Non-Fungible Token

A Non-Fungible Tokens is similar to a crypto token, though they store more information and uniquely identify items or assets. Information in the form of metadata is often stored in a locally hosted environment, with the ownership of that information being directly tied to the NFT on the blockchain. NFTs use the ERC-721 token standard which allows for different tokens tied to the same Smart Contract to have different values based on age or rarity. ERC-1155 allows items to be held in a single contract, differentiated by one another with minimal data.

NFTs primarily are based on Ethereums ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards. There are other blockchains outside of Ethereum that have NFTs such as Solana, Tezos, Polkadot, and others.

Personas of NFTs: Artist, Buyer, and Marketplace

When we think about NFTs, we need to think about who is involved with the NFT process; the Artist, Buyer, Platform, and Collector.

Artist

The Artist is the creator of the art. Artists create digital works of art such as painting, drawing, videos, or music, and then add metadata via descriptions, features, and rarity which will be part of the NFT. The flexibility for artists is tremendous as they can create variations of their art, create collections, or one-of-ones.

Buyer

The Buyer is the consumer of the artwork, just as they would be in the physical world. Buyers can purchase art that speaks to them from the artists they support. A buyer can hold on to the art piece and be a collector, just as they might collect any other item in the physical or digital world. Buyers can also become sellers or flippers of the artwork, purchasing the art for the intention of selling at a higher price in the future.

Marketplace

Marketplaces are currently where people go to purchase NFTs from Artist or from Buyers who have turned into Sellers. The most well know NFT marketplaces are OpenSea, Super Rare, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway. Art is minted (created) to the blockchain from these marketplaces to be listed, sold, and collected.

How to purchase an NFT

In order for someone to purchase an NFT, they typically need to go through a cryptocurrency workflow involving purchasing Etherereum and connecting a cryptocurrency wallet, most often a Metamask wallet. The user transfers their Ethereum to the Metamask wallet and these are the funds used to purchase the NFT on the Marketplace.

There are some Marketplaces that offer the ability to pay with a credit card, though typically this involves purchasing Ethereum in the marketplace at a higher than market rate and then using it for the instant purchase.

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Brands: The newest players in NFTs

While NFTs have primarily been taken up by Artists and Content Creators, there have been several brands that have been experimenting with NFTs. Brands like Coca-Cola, Pringles, Charmin, DKNY, Dolce&Gabanna, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Visa, and many others.

Brands getting into NFTs today are guided into a workflow that is not native to their shopping environments and adds layers of complexity that neither they nor their customers are accustomed to.

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About Niftmint

Niftmint integrates with Brands to simply mint, sell, and custody NFTs on their websites or apps without needing to manage cryptocurrency or a crypto wallet. The thought of selling NFTs can be overwhelming for brands due to cryptocurrency, minting, and custody, which is why Niftmint handles this all on behalf of the Brand and their customer, allowing the transactions to occur via credit card.

If you are a Brand or partner who would like to discuss your NFT strategy and begin selling NFTs, please visit Niftmint.com and fill out the Contact Us form.

What if Kanye had moments and merch as NFTs for Donda?

On August 26, 2021, Kanye West performed his 3rd concert for his upcoming Donda album.

Kanye West's Donda album has changed how albums are released.

Kanye West is the greatest example of a music artist being a Brand. Yes, he produces and creates music, art, and fashion, but the brand of Kanye West has a following unlike very few.

Traditionally an artist will be in the studio, record an album, then go on a concert tour to promote the album, boosting album sales and selling merchandise, the two most common and often profitable revenue streams for a musician. Kanye has done the opposite.

Over the last several weeks, Kanye has hosted listening parties (2 in Atlanta and 1 in Chicago) filling up football stadiums with fans eager to listen to his highly anticipated Donda album, named after his late mother Donda West. Kanye is essentially "building in public", a term made popular in the startup-tech world, making adjustments to his music and his performance.

Between ticket sales for his three shows, streaming revenue, merchandise sales, and STEM Player, Kanye has brought in nearly $15 Million before the album has even been released. Now imagine if Kaye West was selling #NFTs?

Kanye's NFT opportunity

Currently, we see NFTs as pieces of art and avatar collections created by digital artists and minted on a blockchain. No doubt, Kanye could operate in a similar capacity, but Kanye being the businessman he is and the brand he is, affords him the ability to apply business logic to his NFT strategy. The value of NFTs is more than a new means to sell artworks digitally or a means for an artist to create more direct revenue streams. By incorporating commerce mechanics, loyalty, awareness, and one more sale opportunity, Kanye could catapult his merchandise sales by adding NFTs.

Here are some examples as to how Kanye can incorporate NFTs into his Donda album.

Merchandise

Kanye has created a fashion empire and has always done well with selling merchandise at shows. He's already sold over $7 Million worth of merchandise for Donda. Instead of selling an NFT solely an art piece, Kanye could have follow-on sales of any merch item and have an NFT equivalent or NFT enhancement. For example, one could purchase a Donda sweatshirt and then pay separately for the accompanying NFT. NFTs can be a "one more sale" opportunity or a free addition from Kanye.

Ticket Stub

When selling tickets to events, Kanye could issue out NFT ticket stubs as part of the ticket price. This provides proof of attendance and collectability for fans who can say they had attended the event. Adding the ability to purchase an NFT collectible or a ticket that comes with an NFT as an alternative product provides additional revenue opportunities for Kanye, as well as fans to collect and purchase unique digital products relevant to the event. Whether or not these NFTs increase in value is not of most importance, but rather the remembrance of the event just as someone might save a paper ticket stub.

Moments

NBA Top Shot is an NFT collectible where fans can own a moment in NBA history, like a LeBron Jame dunk or a Stephen Curry 3-Pointer. These moments have had tremendous success with collectors consisting of fans, athletes, entertainers, and famous entrepreneurs. For Kanye fans, the opportunity to be the sole owner of a moment in time during a performance would be a dream. Highlights from recent Donda performances include Kanye setting himself on fire, Kim Kardashian West walking in a wedding gown, and Kanye ascending into the sky. Exclusive Rights to Songs

Trey Lorenz recently had his entire album as an NFT, selling 1 million copies at $1 so his fans can resell the album and make a profit while going platinum with the unit sales.

Kanye could allow one of his songs from the album to be owned collectively by his NFT holders, essentially turning the song into a security-like product. He could also consider selling a one-of-one song via an auction, providing the sole owner of that NFT exclusive rights.

Membership

NFTs can be used to provide access to other items, events, products, or anything. Kanye would be able to create an NFT collection or set quantity of NFTs that provide the ability for special access. This NFT could provide member priority for NFTs around the merchandise, ticket stubs, and moments.

Conclusion

NFTs provide new and interesting opportunities for music artists, particularly those who understand their business and brand value to create increase revenue, loyalty, and find new fans. As simple as we see music artists sell physical merch and in-person events, the integration of the digital world will lead to an enhanced fan experience.

Brands looking to add NFTs to their product offering and looking for a turn key solution can visit Niftmint.com.

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About Niftmint

Niftmint integrates with Brands to simply mint, sell, and custody NFTs on their websites or apps without needing to manage cryptocurrency or a crypto wallet. The thought of selling NFTs can be overwhelming for brands due to cryptocurrency, minting, and custody, which why Niftmint handles this all on behalf of the Brand and their customer, allowing the transactions to occur via credit card.

If you are a Brand or partner who like to discuss your NFT strategy and begin selling NFTs, please visit Niftmint.com and fill out the Contact Us form.