Neon, a digital art collecting platform, recently launched the first NFT (Non-fungible token) vending machine in New York City with the goal of making collection of digital art as easy as getting a soda or bag of chips.
However, there is a twist, buyers cannot know what piece of digital art they will purchase.
‘It’s the crypto curious, the people who tried to buy cryptocurrency or they were interested in buying an NFT, but they just hit too many barriers,’ said Kyle Zappitell, Neon CEO, in an interview with Reuters.
With a sign saying ‘NFT ATM’, it is located in a small storefront in Lower Manhattan’s financial district. It appears to be a regular vending machine, but has options for QR codes on slips in small paper boxes. The prices range from $5.99 to $420.69.
After the QR code is scanned, the user will use their new piece of digital art on any of their devices.
At the Lower Manhattan site, the codes take you to two categories of digital art, a color or picture of a pigeon.
Zappitell believes the element of mystery is a natural extension of the digital art space.
‘As an NFT collector, over time, one of the things you love is the randomness of, “Which one are you going to get?”’ he said. ‘So that’s one of the exciting aspects.’
The art sold in the vending machine is part of the Solana blockchain, which ensures carbon-neutral transactions.
Neon’s vending machine accepts fiat currency, although digital art is mostly purchased with cryptocurrency. The art can be purchased with a credit card.
With $3 million in seed money, Neon says it has hopes of rolling out more vending machines in other public spaces.
‘That’s one of the really powerful messages of this, is how it’s using this old world technology to enable the adoption of new world technology,’ said Zappitell.
By Marvellous Iwendi.
Source: Reuters