The online brokerage “eToro” is creating a $20 Million Dollar Fund to fund the launch “etoro.art”. According to cnbc.com, etoro.art will be an NFT platform that eToro plans to use to invest in “blue-chip” NFTs and provide funding for promising projects. This will be one of eToro’s first ventures into NFT investing.
ETORO SUPPORTS THE NFT ECOSYSTEM
eToro, a social trading platform, has set up a $20 million fund to buy NFTs and help creators. They announced the launch on Thursday, April 7th, at a contemporary art museum called “The Bass”. With a new project called “etoro.art”, the trading platform has set up a fund to help NFT creators and brands.
According to Guy Hirsch, eToro’s US managing director, the NFT fund is the start of a larger strategy for the company, which will eventually offer a variety of services to allow both eToro and other investors to engage in the growing NFT space.
“Before, with bitcoin and ether, you had only the likes of Goldman Sachs or similar traditional financial players participating or looking at expanding into crypto,” Hirsch explained. “NFTs are essentially making any and every potential brand a participant in this market”.
According to coindesk.com, eToro displayed its digital art collection as part of its new business venture, which included artwork from well-known collections like the “Bored Ape Yacht Club”, “CryptoPunks”, and “World of Women”. eToro also wants to invest $10 million this year to help budding creators and companies bring their NFT ideas and collections to life.
“Any brand can hone in on this and create some sort of an NFT that represents an ownership stake in part of the brand” Guy Hirsch commented.
WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR ETORO INVESTORS
NFTs can be used for a lot of things, and digital art is just one-use case for NFTs. Hirsch said eToro hopes to introduce other capabilities that would provide investors exposure to use cases beyond digital art.
Over the past few months alone, large brands from every industry – Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, Gucci, the NFL, and more, have included NFTs as a part of their marketing efforts.
As mentioned on markets.businessinsider.com, etoro.art also plans on making valuing NFT art a lot easier. Creators of the etoro.art platform hope to utilize third-party services in the future that will be able to appraise individual pieces and give people an approximate price of what they’re about to buy. They could also appraise NFTs in a way that would be agreed on by the market consensus.
For some, art has been a good way to make money, but mostly for people who are already very wealthy. In this case, EToro wants to connect both new artists with investors to assist them both in increasing their wealth on etoro.art. Artists and investors could build their wealth in a new way, regardless of their initial net worth.
LENDING A HAND TO BUDDING NFT CREATORS
A lot of the “blue-chip” NFT projects that eToro has in its collection have already sold for at least a few hundred thousand dollars on OpenSea. Going forward, many digital artists will work with the company to bring NFTs onto the platform, but they probably won’t be as popular as brands like the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). However, eToro hopes that having artists post NFTs on their platform will bring them exposure and help them grow in the future.
“When these artists create a collection or NFT drop, the price on those would be quite low,” Hirsch mentioned. “People would be able to participate, and if the community is strong and if the art is promising, it will appreciate in value, but the entry point would still be accessible to the everyday investor”.
“Some of them will, hopefully, reach the point of Bored Ape status,” he also said. “Eventually, like the Bored Apes, that will create a lot of new millionaires, a lot of new wealth for people who didn’t have it before.”
With eToro’s high aspirations for its NFT ecosystem, and their significant fund allocation, it looks like they’re fully committed to making their NFT platform a reality. In a mutually beneficial environment, both creators and eToro itself may benefit by creating NFT projects together.
A STRONG FUTURE FOR NFT INVESTMENTS
eToro already has cryptocurrency related investment options, so adding the option to invest in NFTs would be the next logical step for them. According to data on eToro’s website, bitcoin currently has about 21 million followers out of a total of 27 million users on the platform, with over 32% of those followers having invested in bitcoin. It’s quite likely that a good percentage of those followers would also be interested in investing in the new etoro.art NFT platform.
In addition to NFTs, eToro also expressed interest in investing in metaverse projects. As mentioned on fnlondon.com, on April 7th, eToro chief executive Yoni Assia said, “As a company with one eye constantly on ‘what’s next’, eToro sees huge potential in the metaverse and a range of new digital assets…It is only natural for eToro to serve as the bridge to bring new users into NFTs and the metaverse.”
Although they seem enthusiastic about these new types of investments, eToro must also be ready to deal with the inherent issues of running an NFT platform. They’ll have to make sure their new platform allows for secure transactions and protects artwork from being stolen.
Whether these will be future issues or not, eToro seems fully committed to this project.
