Meet Singapore’s pioneering NFT creators

The global creator economy has been abuzz with anticipation since Singapore-based collector and blockchain entrepreneur MetaKovan surfaced as a crypto whale.

In March, MetaKovan, whose real name is Vignesh Sundaresan, bought a non-fungible token (NFT) by digital artist Beeple for US$69 million. While many creators hope to make the next big NFT for the Singapore-based collector, they know it’s a long shot.

Rather than targeting the fairly niche market of digital art aficionados who happen to be crypto enthusiasts, they are experimenting with new use cases for tokenized digital collectibles.

“I think NFTs are a very broad subject and not something that can easily be categorized into a few small groups. I think gaming will be a big section, I think membership or brand loyalty NFTs will be big, collectibles, of course, and artwork will always be around. Music and TV or movies are also something that will be interesting to see,” says Zach Burks, founder and CEO of Singapore-based NFT minting platform and marketplace Mintable.

The company raised US$13 million in series A funding in July from familiar crypto players including Ripple, Animoca Brands, and Metapurse—a venture capital fund owned by MetaKovan.

Burks expects big brands like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Nike, and more to offer NFTs to their customers in some way in the future (it’s already happening in China).

Once we hit this point, everyday NFTs will be more of a membership pass, coupon, or loyalty program, as opposed to just art. “Games will also be a big part of this as well and will really take the younger generation by storm,” Burks adds.

Here, we feature three Singapore digital collectible creators to see how they’re riding on the NFT wave to move their business to the next level.

Dark Zodiac NFT project raises over US$1 million

One recent hit is Dark Zodiac, a set of digital trading cards that raised over US$1 million from sales of its first NFT collection on September 26. Each of the 3,876 NFTs in the set represents an individual trading card which can be bought and sold on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace in the world.

The cards themselves showcase the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac. Yet notably, the buyers of the first collection are not based in China but in Australia, Europe, the US, and the UK. Only a handful of buyers are from Singapore and Malaysia.

The gameplay of Dark Zodiac at the moment is limited: Collectors are rewarded with an exclusive box if they manage to collect all 12 zodiac characters.

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