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Visa buys CryptoPunk #7610 in a bid to 'learn' about the NFT craze

CryptoPunk 7804

This is CryptoPunk 7804, the "digital Mona Lisa." Visa just bought #7610.

Photo: Larva Labs / Peruggia / who really owns digital art?

Visa said Monday that it has bought CryptoPunk #7610, marking the payments giant's big push into NFT commerce.

CryptoPunk #7610, one of a collection of more than 3,000 pixel art images, is considered one of the original non-fungible tokens launched in 2017.

Visa said it acquired the NFT for $150,000.

Cuy Sheffield, Visa's head of crypto, said NFTs are a growing market and represent a big opportunity for Visa. NFTs recorded $1 billion in payment volume in August, up from less than $100 million in 2020, he said in a blog post.

Buying CryptoPunk #7610 was a way for Visa to gain more insights into a growing market, he said. "We wanted to learn," Sheffield wrote. "We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce. To help our clients and partners participate, we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT."

 Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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