Santanu Hazarika, Ritviz sell artwork on WazirX in one of world’s fastest NFT sales

Binance owned cryptocurrency exchange WazirX on Monday recorded one of the fastest ever sales on its NFT (non-fungible tokens) marketplace. A collaborative artwork posted by visual artist Santanu Hazarika and singer-songwriter Ritviz was snapped up within seconds of going live.

The artwork was listed on the occasion of World Music Day and sold for 300 WRX (WazirX tokens) or $391.80 at that time.

Once an NFT is created and sold, it becomes a unique asset for the buyer and cannot be copied. The ownership of the asset is tracked using blockchain.

“The global NFT market is slowly becoming a crucial promotional tool for all artists to monetize their work and uniquely engage with their community of collectors and fans who value art,” Hazarika said. “The WazirX NFT Marketplace functions as a social network for artists and fans of art, providing an avenue for interaction. With NFTs, artists are now open to working with anyone — anywhere,” he added.

Over the next few months, the artist plans to list several more NFTs on the WazirX marketplace, in collaboration with popular musicians.

“We are opening the Music NFT creator category on the WazirX NFT platform,” Vishakha Singh, vice president, advisor at WazirX NFT Marketplace, said.  “Music creators can now apply to be selected for the official unveiling of the category on the 1st of July. Musicians can finally leverage our platform to engage with their community in creative new ways,” she added.

The blockchain-based platform launched earlier in June to help artists and creators place their unique digital assets – art pieces, audio/video, animated GIFs, in-game articles, and tweets -- and intellectual properties for auction and earn royalties on them.

While the marketplace does not involve any listing price, there is a gas fee charged to mint the NFT via a blockchain. WazirX says that its platform is powered by the Binance Smart Chain, which brings this cost down from $60-$100 to about $1.

With 299% growth in 2020 and over $250 million worth transactions, NFTs are believed to be next logical step in the space of collecting and keeping prized digital items.

Back in March, Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million, while the popular Charlie Bit My Finger video has fetched $760,999 as an NFT.