Visa is launching the NFT Creator Program globally in order to provide guidance and mentorship within the industry. Via a one-year program, Visa intends to build a global collective of creative pioneers looking to accelerate their businesses through non-fungible tokens.
According to Visa, its new program will help digital-first artists, musicians, fashion designers, and filmmakers strengthen their small businesses using non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to navigate through the new category of commerce.
“NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy,” said Cuy Sheffield, Head of the Crypto, Visa.
“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.”
The program will select a few creators, mentor them with Visa’s team of crypto product and strategy leaders, and cover topics including evaluating trade-offs between underlying blockchain networks, smart contracts, and NFT marketplaces.
Small entrepreneurs will be offered an opportunity to exchange ideas with a community of creators in various stages of their NFT journey and will also be provided access to leading-edge thinkers and researchers working across digital commerce, web3, crypto, and payments.
Further, the company said it will help these creators with companies across Visa’s network of clients and partners. And also give creators one-time stipend to help them kickstart the next phase of growth.
Visa estimates that the digital creator economy now makes over $100 billion annually. Therefore, concluding that NFTs will play a huge part in future growth, as well as representing the next major step in the e-commerce industry.
“With an estimated market size of more than $100 billion, the creator economy is one of the fastest-growing categories of small businesses. To support this growth today with the Visa Creator Program, the company aims to help creators navigate the technology behind NFTs and be able to better understand what value it can unlock for digital ownership and monetization of creative assets, making it more accessible,”
As a result, Visa will look to simplify the purchasing process for digital output by making the buying of NFTs as simple as any other Visa transaction.
The Visa Creator Program is global and all interested creators are invited to learn more and submit their information for consideration to be part of the Visa Creator Program. Visa will contact potential candidates and announce the final class later this year. The deadline to express interest in the program is Wednesday, May 11th, 2022.
To apply for the accelerator program, head over to the Visa website and submit an application.
