After Samsung, LG launches its own NFT-enabled Smart TV

After South Korean electronics company Samsung introduced Smart televisions (TVs) with non-fungible token (NFT) capabilities, one of its major competitors LG Electronics, has joined the trend. The company is launching its NFT platform LG Art Lab which will enable users to buy, sell, and display digital artwork without needing to use computers or smartphones to access platforms that sell the NFTs.    

The announcement comes just a day after Samsung’s stride into the NFT space with the release of an NFT marketplace for its smart TVs. However, in a press conference in December 2021, LG already spoke about its plans to bring NFTs to TVs. Likewise, Samsung first announced the NFT Marketplace for its smart TVs where users may directly buy, sell, and trade the tokens last May.   

LG’s new NFT features in smart television will start rolling out Monday September 5, to all TV sets running webOS 5.0 or later in the US and will be directly accessible from the TV’s home screen, according to LG, which added that the platform is a “convenient, one-stop solution” for NFTs. 

“LG intends to support the platform with features such as LG Art Lab Drops, which profiles artists and previews upcoming artwork in ‘drops’ which will also have a real-time Live Drops countdown, allowing users to grab a fresh drop as soon as it’s available,” it said.   

The Korea-based company has partnered with Hedera, which it mentioned as the “most used, sustainable, enterprise public ledger for the decentralised economy.” That said, unlike other popular NFT protocols like Ethereum or Solana, Hedera does not work on a blockchain. Instead, it uses an alternative called hashgraph that claims to be faster and more efficient than a blockchain protocol. It should be noted that LG is one of the governing members of the Hedera Network as well, along with Google, Deutsche Telekom and IBM. 

The promise of Smart TVs with NFT features is just another example of how far the sector has grown. 

As per a market report published in July 2022 by global research and consulting firm Verified Market Research (VMR) continued adoption of NFTs across a variety of industries from video gaming, music, art and digital collections could see the sector valued at $231 billion by 2030. The global NFT market was pegged at $11.3 billion in 2021 and the sector is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.7% over the next eight years.   

NFT is now available in most modern technologies in the world, also expanding platforms to televisions and other electronics may not come as a surprise. The move can hence be significant for both Samsung and LG, who are leading players in the TV and electronics market, according to data from Statista. Hence, their decision to incorporate NFTs into their products may considerably impact the market in general, as other competitors may also consider entering the space.