Brand Jamaica, But Make it an NFT.

“NFTs can create an amazing opportunity for brand Jamaica. We have been talking about monetizing it forever. Our chance is here. Who is gonna step up?.” This was a tweet from Jamaican tech entrepreneur Jermaine Henry that made me go take a quick look at what I know is happening in the Jamaican NFT space so far. So let me share it with you.

• Ever heard of CariDrop.com ? Started by Jamaican Intellectual Property Lawyer Joan Webley just this moneth . CariDrop has positioned itself as a marketplace. On the site it said “We are Caribbean creatives and dynamic business professionals creating digital equity for the diaspora, via marquee NFT offerings. We aim to empower authentic, creative, Caribbean brands through curated collections, products, hybrid experiences, and awareness campaigns that connect the world to the unique value of Caribbean culture.” They even published a Whitepaper to let the world know their intentions.

• Did you know that the Rastas are in on it too? Yep, CryptoRastas NFT has entertered the chat with what they call, ” the first NFT collection for reggae culture”. They did a a big drop on August 29th. They also dropped a Spotify Playlist that is 4hours and 20minutes of 8bit digital #reggae selection ! Now put that in your digital pipe and smoke it.

• Who was the first Jamaican artist to create an NFT? It was BayC who released the first Reggae and Dancehall NFT in April this year. He was the first Reggae and Dancehall  to release his music as an NFT. It is a limited collection of the Holy Temple single is now available under the BAYC token, an industry standard ERC-1145 token that can be purchased on both the Rarible and OpenSea NFT distribution platforms.

And so what’s the big deal about NFTs anyway?

First, let me tell you what’s an NFT in the first place. NFT stands for Non-fungible token. It is a crypto asset, representing an intangible digital item such as an image, video, or in-game item. So an NFT can be anything digital such as drawings, music, painting, artwork, a photo, even a book cover. Owners of NFTs are recorded on the blockchain, allowing an NFT to be traded as a stand-in for the digital asset it represents. Cha Ching!

So, in layman’s terms, it means an NFT is a unique digital property, a unique digital asset/collectible that and can’t be replaced with something else. And the NFT market has been going crazy since this year. “The market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) surged to new highs in the second quarter, with $2.5bn in sales so far this year, up from just $13.7m in the first half of 2020,” AlJazeera has reported.

In fact, a digital-only artwork was sold at Christie’s auction house for an eye-watering US$69m (£50m) – and the winning bidder will not receive a sculpture, painting, or even a print. Additionally, Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has promoted an NFT of the first-ever tweet, with bids hitting US$2.5m.

Now since NFTs can be “tokenised” to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought and sold. As with crypto-currency, a record of who owns what is stored on that shared ledger, so cannot be forged because the ledger is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. Added to that, NFTs may also contain smart contracts that may give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token. Hence you see that the money-making strategy is not just for a one-time sale but also for licensing.

It’s a wild, wild west in the NFT space right now. So do a bunch of research before creating or buying them. Good luck to the people running in on this booming market. Do be smart as you make it Brand Jamaica into that NFT space.