NFTs Brought a Whole New Class of Consumers into The Crypto Space, Says Visa Executive

Cuy Sheffield – Visa’s Head of Crypto – believes non-fungible tokens have opened the doors to people interested in music, art, culture, and sports to enter the cryptocurrency market. In addition, meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have also garnered society’s attention and have brought more participants to the digital asset space.

NFTs Raised The Popularity of The Crypto Industry

During a recent panel discussion at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Cuy Sheffield – a top executive at Visa and head of the crypto department of the company – said non-fungible tokens had lured new people in the crypto bandwagon.

Before NFTs, the digital asset space was attractive mainly to individuals interested in finance and gold, while now fans of music, culture, sports, and art are also keen on the asset class, he opined.

“Crypto is becoming cultural, it’s becoming cool. It used to be that if you were investing in crypto, you were kind of weird.”

Another factor that increased the global popularity of cryptocurrencies has been the rise of the meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB). That is what Yusho Liu – Co-Founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinhako – claimed during the same panel discussion.

In his turn, Kevin Lim – Director at Singapore’s investment firm Temasek – said the “huge demand” towards those tokens is mainly driven by the people’s will to speculate and to make “meaningful money.”

Speculative or not, Shiba Inu has been the top performer in the cryptocurrency market this year. Recently, the giant movie theater chain AMC Theaters revealed it might add the popular meme coin to its list of digital asset payment options after Adam Aron – the company’s CEO – ran a poll on Twitter about whether to make such a move. 81.4% of the participants answered: “Yes, Shiba Inu for Sure.”

NFTs for All Types of Fans

This year, the NFT craze has gone through the roof as many celebrities, musicians, actors, and sports clubs joined the trend by launching their digital collections.

The 15-time Grammy award winner Marshall Bruce Mathers III – better known as Eminem – partnered with Nifty Gateway to release a digital set, dubbed Shady Con.

Movie fans also had their chance to join the non-fungible token craze. Recently, one of the greatest film directors of all time – Quentin Tarantino – launched a digital collection with seven “secret NFTs” featuring uncut Pulp Fiction scenes.

The American entertainment company, primarily known for professional wrestling – WWE – went even further in its endeavors by creating an eco-friendly NFT marketplace. There, the organization promised to capture emblematic moments from grand events like Wrestlemania and SummerSlam.

Subsequently, many soccer clubs released non-fungible token collections for their supporters. A recent example is FC Barcelona, which decided to depict iconic events from its history, such as displaying the record 75 trophies it has won in Spain and the 5 UEFA Champions League titles.