Global asset management firm VanEck will airdrop 1,000 NFTs to onboard new members to the VanEck crypto community. The VanEck NFTs will act as digital membership cards and grant holders exclusive access to research, events, and more.
JP Lee, the VanEck Community NFT co-founder, said that the team hasn’t forgotten NFT’s artistic roots despite the digital membership focus. The NFTs will feature “eye-popping 3D avatars and videos” that create a real sense of story and spur debate about current financial issues.
To create attractive and eye-catching NFTs, VanEck has partnered with South Korean NFT company NUMOMO for the designs. Rolf Hoefer, the co-founder of NUMOMO, said this project is “something worth getting up for,” to do great work with great people.
The NFTs will follow a fictional character named “Hammy,” based on Alexander Hamilton. Hammy, through the NFTs, will explore monetary policy from the past to the present. He also encounters different characters to help him in his mission.
VanEck is known for thinking outside of the box, and an image accompanying the VanEck NFT Community page reads, “Dare to be different.” The firm has released a few crypto-related investment tools in several months, including a Bitcoin Futures ETF.
According to the VanEck press release, this is the first NFT collection from a global asset management firm. For more information or to sign up for the airdrop, visit the VanEck NFT community page.
Web3 Gaining More Acceptance with Traditional Finance
While traditional finance institutions still view Web3 as a speculative investment, more and more are diving in. Once a critic of cryptocurrency, JP Morgan recently opened a virtual branch in Decentraland. Citibank said the metaverse could be worth $13 trillion by 2030. And in April, Goldman Sachs joined in an investment round for CertiK, a blockchain security company.
But VanEck’s step in launching an NFT collection is new for the traditional finance institutions. And it focuses on a credible use case for NFTs that is often overlooked: memberships. With most NFTs operating as profile pictures with no underlying utility, NFTs as memberships have actual IRL value. Then, the VanEck collection has practicality rather than for use solely as a flex.
Many large companies have explored adding IRL utility to their NFT drops, often with success. Time will tell if the VanEck collection becomes the impetus for other financial institutions to launch their own. Regardless, it is another bullish sign for a technological trend that shows no sign of slowing down.