Towards a tokenised future: Ripple announces $250m Creator Fund to evolve NFTs utility

By Gaia Lamperti

The global boom in non-fungible-tokens (NFTs) has introduced new revenue streams and innovative business models, however, many creators still face barriers to entry the space due to a lack of understanding when it comes to navigating NFT concepts. Developers, meanwhile, are often burdened with high transaction fees and unsatisfying user experiences on marketplaces or platforms.

For this reason, Ripple, the leading provider of enterprise blockchain and faster, more transparent and more cost-effective crypto solutions, has launched a $250 million fund to provide creators with the financial, creative and technical support needed to explore and craft premium NFTs and other tokenization projects on the XRP Ledger.

“While NFTs have opened the door for a tokenized future, actually navigating these concepts is a different ball game for many,” said Monica Long, GM of RippleX at Ripple. “By starting with marketplaces and creators, our fund seeks to take the guesswork out of NFT projects to unlock unexplored tokenization use cases on the XRP Ledger.”

NFTs attracted mainstream attention and interest recently, recording a total of $2 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2021 only. The biggest deals were mainly related to digital art and collectables, but the utility of NFTs goes far beyond these use cases. So, by providing creative and technical support to a diverse array of marketplaces, creators, artists and brands, Ripple’s Creator Fund seeks to enable longtail use cases for tokenization.

The XRP Ledger is a decentralised, open-source blockchain and its built-in decentralised exchange (DEX) provides fast settlement for tokenised assets, including NFTs. For the developers, the XRP Ledger’s performance advantages such as speed, low cost and built-in royalties, make it ideally suited to drive NFT utility at scale, and without the need for Layer-2 protocols. Library support is also available to simplify NFT integrations and bypass direct XRPL development.

Among some of the most innovative NFT marketplaces and creative agencies that Ripple is teaming up with figure Mintable, VSA Partners, and mintNFT, who all recognise the potential of these unique tokenised assets and are accelerating the evolution of compelling BFTs projects.

“Everything we do at Mintable centres around accessibility, and it’s time that we look at that holistically — creators of all disciplines and backgrounds need to have access to equal opportunities in the space,” said Zach Burks, CEO of Mintable. “There are so many untapped opportunities within the constantly evolving NFT ecosystem, and we’re excited to be deepening our partnership with Ripple to support their Creator Fund in order to encourage greater growth in the industry.”

Sarah Lent, CMO of VSA Partners commented on the initiative: “NFTs have been a source of huge excitement for creators, enabling new ways to build communities and meaningful brand equity. It’s clear that when creators and brands are deliberate with their NFT campaigns, it will have a long-lasting impact on their customers, partners, and the larger community. As a premier partner of the creator fund, VSA can help brands and artists think through the entire ecosystem of brand-building experiences, the community of fans to engage and deploy the strategic guidance and storytelling needed around NFTs to generate brand value.”