LG Taps Hedera Blockchain for NFT Marketplace

Seoul-based TV giant LG Electronics announced the launch of its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace – LG Art Lab – potentially opening up NFT collecting to a much broader audience.

With the latest platform, based on the Hedera blockchain, users will be able to explore, buy, sell and trade NFTs on LG’s smart television sets. LG Art Lab will also incorporate onscreen QR codes to enable users to complete transactions with the help of the company’s crypto wallet for smartphones, called Wallypto, which is also built on Hedera.

After an NFT is purchased, it can be traded on LG Art Lab Marketplace. Users will be able to view transaction history as well as look at their own artwork.

LG-Hedera’s Collaboration

LG had first hinted at plans to incorporate NFT features into its smart TV at a press conference earlier this year. Confirming the development, Hedera tweeted,

“Governing Council Member LGElectronics has launched LG Art Lab – built on Hedera – enabling LG TV owners to buy, sell and showcase #HederaNFTs from their screens. All LG TVs running webOS5.0 will be able to interact with the LG Art Lab app. #HelloFuture.”

The move to onboard Hedera for an NFT integration comes naturally as the South Korean television company first joined the Hedera Governing Council back in May 2020. During that time, LG became the sole home appliance manufacturer to be roped in as a member of the council some of which also includes – Google, IBM, Deutsche Telekom and IIT, among others.

The collaboration essentially aimed to identify that distributed ledger technology can benefit consumers and supply chain partners by facilitating seamless transactions.

Tech Firms Tapping NFT Space

LG’s NFT foray follows its competitor – Samsung Electronics – announcing plans of potential NFT integration within its new TVs at the CES trade show in January this year. Three months later, it added NFT functionality to its smart TV sets. As per the announcement, Samsung intended to aggregate data from multiple marketplaces and provide info about the artwork thereby becoming the first electronics company to put NFTs into TV sets.

For the initiative, the tech giant had partnered with Nifty Gateway, which happens to be an Ethereum-centric marketplace founded in 2018, and was later acquired by crypto exchange Gemini.