Guess who’s the latest buyer of the highly popular CryptoPunk? It’s the global payments giant Visa.
The multinational company has announced that it has purchased “CryptoPunk #7610” for 49.5 ETH which is worth around $160,000 in today’s valuation.
With its NFT purchase, Visa is slowly but surely making its presence more significant in the fast-growing cryptocurrency industry.
Also, CryptoPunk #7610 will now join Visa’s prestigious collection which it calls “historic commerce artifacts” which includes zip-zap machines and credit cards.
Important role
After the purchase was announced, Visa also laid out a comprehensive report on the merits and functions of NFTs and how it will tap its big potential.
“We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce,” the report said.
Visa has also said it will create an infrastructure to accommodate its growing clients who are interested in cryptos and NFTs. The company vowed to create an efficient system that will help its customers purchase, store, and sell NFT assets.
Visa has previously partnered with various crypto-related companies including Binance, Circle, and Simplex to further expand its presence in the crypto industry. Through these collaborations, Visa was able to roll out credit and debit cards that enabled its customers to pay for items using cryptos.
But this isn’t the biggest crypto move of the company yet. Visa gave a hint that it might add direct crypto transactions to its payment network which could be readily used by its millions of users.
Cryptopunks
CryptoPunks are 10,000 unique pixelated characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain.
This was developed by American Studio Larva Labs, a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson.
This collection is one of the earliest examples of NFTs on Ethereum and became an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard that runs most digital arts and collectibles.
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube