Crypto exchange WazirX announces NFT marketplace for India

Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX on Monday announced a marketplace for Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs. Using the marketplace, Indian artists can auction their digital assets such as art pieces, audio files, videos, programs, and even tweets, the company said in a release. 

An NFT is a unique cryptocurrency-based token that is ‘non-fungible’ in nature, which means that it can not be replaced by another ‘identical’ item. Its copies cannot be created following the purchase, which makes it a unique asset for buyers. 

Almost any digital asset can be an NFT as long as there is a buyer for it.

In a statement, WazirX said it will not charge its customers for creating and listing NFTs on the platform. However, since NFTs are built on blockchains that allow smart contracts, users will have to pay a ‘gas fee’ to the miners in their respective cryptocurrencies. 

WazirX said it is currently working towards nullifying this cost. Also, the website announcing the NFT marketplace currently asks users to join a waitlist, suggesting that it hasn’t been launched yet. 

Entrackr has reached out to WazirX’s founder Nischal Shetty for more details. 

NFTs have become a bit of a rage lately, fuelled by the likes of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Last month, Dorsey offered his tweet as an NFT, which sold for $2.9 million. Musk tweeted that he was selling a song about NFTs as an NFT, however, he later changed his mind. 

Famed auction house Christie’s sold an NFT for $69 million, for which the buyer got a digital file of a collage of 5,000 images. 

WazirX’s NFT initiative is being spearheaded by Canada based entrepreneur Sandesh B Suvarna with film actor and producer Vishakha Singh as an advisor.

Quoting a market study, WazirX said that the NFT market grew by 299% in 2020 as it clocked more than $250 million as the total value of transactions. 

However, NFTs also pose a significant concern to the environment. Since NFTs are minted just like cryptocurrencies, they use a lot of energy, with estimates suggesting that a single NFT transaction on the Ethereum network uses the same amount of energy as an average US household uses over two days.