Visa NFT Creator Program Launches for Small Businesses
Matt Williams Last updated: 
Visa continues to be bullish on NFTs, announcing today that they will launch an NFT program to help creators ‘interested in building their business with NFTs’.
Their NFT creator program is an initiative to help anyone with a small business who already creates NFTs or wants to learn how to do so – whether they’re a musician, artist, filmmaker, fashion designer, entrepreneur etc. – to grow their reach and revenue using NFTs.
Visa NFT Partnership
In October 2021 Visa partnered with baseball player Micah Johnson and his media company Aku Inc., with the aim to help creators better understand and utilize NFTs and empower them to succeed in the digital goods marketplace.
Visa’s Head of Crypto Cuy Sheffield stated the company believes that: ‘We are at the beginning of a digital renaissance in the world of art and content creation’.
In August 2021 Visa also even purchased a CryptoPunk NFT, making history as the first major payment processor to buy NFTs.
That Punk was worth $ 150,000 in ETH, and Sheffield wrote in a blog at the time: ‘We’re a company steeped in the history of commerce and payments – but with our eyes on the future. With our CryptoPunk purchase, we’re jumping in feet first. This is just the beginning of our work in this space. NFTs are a new form of commerce.’
NFT Commerce
Visa’s latest announcement to host an NFT program also mentions NFT commerce in depth:
Each cycle of the program will support a selected group of entrepreneurs looking to deepen their understanding of the technology and platforms underpinning NFT commerce. NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy. We’ve been studying the NFT ecosystem and its potential impacts on the future of commerce, retail and social media. Through the Visa Creator Program, we want to help this new breed of small and micro businesses tap into new mediums for digital commerce.
It goes on to say Visa will work with people of a range of experience levels, whether they’ve just minted their first NFT or have several successful NFT drops under their belt.
The Visa creator program will support NFT artists in five key areas:
- Technical & Product Mentorship – meeting Visa crypto product managers
- Community Building
- Access to thought leaders – networking with Web 3.0, crypto and digital commerce leaders
- Exposure to Visa’s clients and partners
- Providing a stipend – financial assistance to kick start business growth
Read the full Visa NFT announcement on usa.visa.com.
Non-fungible tokens look like they are here to stay. This bullish Visa NFT news follows on from Mark Zuckerberg announcing Meta (formerly Facebook) is planning to integrate NFTs in Instagram, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club makers Yuga Labs raising hundreds of millions for a BAYC Metaverse project.
Visa estimated the NFT market size at over $ 100 billion and called it one of the fastest-growing categories of small business, noting their importance in establishing ownership and authenticity of digital goods and media. They’ve also stated they want Visa card payments to be accepted at all online NFT marketplaces.
In December Visa even opened a cryptocurrency advisory service to help on-board financial institutions into the crypto industry.
Metamask, a popular wallet for NFTs and cryptocurrencies, have also announced they will support Apple Pay as a payment method for users to buy crypto.
Cryptoassets are a highly volatile unregulated investment product.
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