Bollywood stars, Indian celebrities launch NFTs amid international craze

Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan leaves after attending the marriage ceremony of Isha Ambani, the daughter of the Chairman of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, in Mumbai, India, December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Picture

MUMBAI, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Indian celebrities from the world of Bollywood and cricket are more and more launching digital memorabilia via non-fungible tokens (NFT), hoping to rake in hundreds of {dollars} by cashing in on rising curiosity in such property.

NFTs are a kind of digital asset which use blockchain to report the possession of things reminiscent of pictures, movies and different collectibles. Their roaring recognition has baffled many however the explosive progress exhibits no signal of abating.

Bollywood superstars reminiscent of Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan are planning to launch NFTs quickly. Whereas Bachchan’s NFTs will embrace autographed posters of his motion pictures, Khan has been constructing pleasure on his Twitter account by telling his 43 million followers concerning the deliberate NFT launch.

“NFTs are proper now alien to Bollywood however I’m positive they (movie stars) will see this as one other platform the place they will use their current content material and generate income,” stated Ayaan Agnihotri of Bollycoin, an NFT market for Bollywood property.

Agnihotri stated that inside days of launch this month, his platform offered 8 million of the 20 million accessible so-called “BollyCoins”, crypto tokens that can be utilized to purchase NFTs when they’re launched. One BollyCoin is price 10 U.S. cents.

However its nonetheless early days for superstar NFTs in India.

Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik is auctioning a digital artwork reel from a cricket match the place he hit a match-winning six on the final ball for round 5 ethereums, a digital forex, price round $20,000. However he has but to obtain any bids.

“NFT has picked up loads within the West within the final one yr with now iconic moments from basketball being purchased by followers digitally, which gave us the thought,” Karthik informed Reuters.

Others have had success. Certainly one of India’s prime vogue designers, Manish Malhotra, not too long ago offered NFTs of digital sketches of a few of his most well-known creations for $4,000 a chunk. Malhotra’s web site exhibits one should buy a few of his bridal put on outfits at a cheaper price vary of $2,500-$3,500.

The rise of NFTs has baffled many who say it makes little sense to spend massive sums of cash on gadgets that do not bodily exist and might merely be seen on-line.

Nonetheless, international gross sales volumes of NFTs have galloped to $10.7 billion within the third quarter of 2021, making an eightfold improve from the earlier quarter, information from market tracker DappRadar confirmed.

Vishakha Singh, vp for NFTs at Indian crypto trade WazirX, stated superstar participation within the phase is ready to create pleasure within the house.

This, she stated, “is nice for the ecosystem. This may assist us in garnering extra consciousness in the direction of this new sport altering world of digital property,” Singh stated.

Reporting by Nupur Anand and Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Modifying by Aditya Kalra and Kim Coghill

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