Memorable covers with Drake, Grimes, Arcade Fire and Daniel Caesar are auctioned on the Rarible platform
For decades, readers have come to love many of the covers of NOW magazine and its sister publication, Georgia Straight in Vancouver.
Now, the company that owns NOW and Straight, Media Central Corporation, offers virtual versions of 4 NOW music covers and five Georgia Straight art covers as non-fungible virtual tokens, also known as NFTs.
Buyers who purchase NOW Magazine or Georgia Straight NFT will have a registration code and hashtag attesting that they own those exclusive assets. In the future, owners will sell those DTVs if they wish.
The NFTs of the nine covers are on display and open for auction in rarible. com/nowmagazine and rarible. com/georgiastraight. NOW covers features that will be available such as Drake, Grimes, Daniel Caesar and Arcade Fire.
What are NFTs, you may be wondering? These are exclusive virtual assets that are part of the Ethereum blockchain and are an extension of the types of investments that other people have historically made in other collectibles, such as baseball cards, Beanie Babies, and old comics.
Everyone from filmmaker David Cronenberg to independent musicians and artists is cryptocurrency for selling art that doesn’t exist as physical objects. There is already a booming market. According to DappRadar, sales reached $2. 5 billion in the first part of 2021.
One of the biggest sales came in March when Mike Winkelmann, the virtual artist known as Beeple, sold an NFT through Christie’s for $69 million. This award paid for Beeple’s purely virtual artwork, Everydays: The First 5000 Days.
Media Central’s chairman of the board, Manos Pavlakis, noted in a company press release that there is a growing understanding of the investment price of NFTs and how they can reward assets.
“As we stick to the immediate evolution of media, it is evident that cryptocurrencies as currency and blockchain as a secure position to record and buy transactions will play a role in the long-term buying habits of media and consumers,” Pavlakis said.
“The generational popularity of Georgia Straight and NOW magazine, spanning nearly a hundred years. . . it is our first attempt to seize the opportunity presented through NFTs for diversified earnings growth. “”
Media Central’s resolution to market NFTs is a component of an overall strategy to expand new virtual earnings models while highlighting the quality of its print and virtual publications.
Earlier this year, the company unveiled its arts and entertainment aggregation Creatornews. com, featuring articles from Georgia Straight and NOW Magazine, as well as articles from other publications and websites around the world.
Media Central said its NFTs are stored in virtual wallets, which can be discovered in MetaMask. io. No there is open offer and the company will decide whether or not to accept offers on collection covers as they are placed.
“We have no illusions that long-term NFT sales, for us, will be to win the lottery,” Media Central President Kirk MacDonald said in the company’s press release. “That said, we are confident that we have new virtual assets that will attract NFT buyers and allow them to own a share of history in our communities. “
NOW’s Drake canopy released on August 2, 2012, as the Toronto hip-hop superstar prepares for the third edition of his annual OVO concert. Art Angels. Daniel Caesar’s canopy released on August 17, 2017, just before the R star
Meanwhile, Georgia Straight offers five artistic versions as NFT: actor Seth Rogen, singer-songwriter k. d. lang, singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, Mordecai Richler and Toronto country rockers Blue Rodeo.
@nowtoronto