You’ve probably at least heard about cryptocurrencies in passing. If you haven’t, there are many who say they represent the future of commerce.
There are literally dozens of cryptocurrencies out there, but there are half a dozen major players, including the two largest, BitCoin and Ethereum, both of which can be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange called Gemini.
Recently, Gemini signed a three-year contract for a new NFT billboard in New York City.
NFTS are an outgrowth of blockchain technology, which serves as the beating heart of cryptocurrency. NFT stands for “Non-Fungible Token,” and essentially, these tokens represent unique, non-interchangeable units of data that are stored on a blockchain, which is essentially a digital ledger.
The reason that they’re becoming increasingly popular and steadily moving into the public consciousness is that they allow people who create works of art to sell finite numbers of copies by establishing a unique and presumably unhackable identifier for each copy sold.
While you can right click and save an image from the internet and use it as you wish, you still don’t own it. An image or art sold as an NFT on the other hand, will have its owner verifiable on the crypto-blockchain, hence their growing popularity.
The market for NFTs has grown quickly, and sales in the first quarter of 2021 exceeded two billion dollars.
Many companies, Gemini included, feel that they represent the future of creative commerce, which is the reason they acquired the billboard space.
For the moment, the digital billboard, which occupies space once held by a massive CNN billboard is simply displaying a message that reads “Hello World,” which is the default “first post” you see when you set up a WordPress blog.
Gemini’s specific plans for the billboard are unknown at this time, but the company is on the bleeding edge of both crypto and NFTs, so both will undoubtedly be at the forefront of future ad campaigns, and given that the company has signed a three year contract, it’s clear that they’re betting heavily on the success of both.
While we’re on the subject of ad campaigns, if you’re struggling to come up with compelling ideas for your next run, we can help with that. Just give our office a call at 770-271-8842 and let’s make advertising magic together.