NFT buzz grows in India, 30 celebrities to launch their digital collectibles soon

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More celebrities are jumping on the non-fungible token (NFT) bandwagon with the industry picking up pace in India especially after the great response to the digital collectibles offered by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan.

An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger called a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio and other types of digital files.

As many as 30 celebrities from the field of music, cricket and Bollywood will be launching their digital collectibles on December 12 on NFT marketplace Colexion.

They include music composer duos Salim-Sulaiman, cricketers Varun Chakravarthy and Dwayne Bravo, and Bollywood and TV stars Tanuj Virwani and Aamir Ali, among others.

“In the first edition, interactive trump cards of all 30 celebrities will be launched. There will be 30 individual cards of each celebrity. It will be priced at $30 for one combo pack which will have five NFTs of any of the 30 celebrities,” Colexion founder and CEO Abhay Aggarwal told Moneycontrol.

Launched by Colexion, interactive trump cards will have photos, and models in 3D and 2D formats of the celebrities.

Confident about the NFT market in India, Aggarwal expects it to become a $1billion industry.

While NFTs are still at a nascent stage in India, the response for Bachchan’s digital collectibles was proof of the craze for the digital assets in the country.

Bachchan’s NFTs of ‘Madhushala’, a book of poetry by his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and autographed posters and collectibles had garnered $966,000 (about Rs 7.18 crore) at an auction organised by BeyondLife.club, an NFT exchange platform. The ‘Madhushala’ NFT collection was the pick of the lot, with the poems recorded in the superstar’s own voice crossing a total of $756,000 (about Rs 5.5 crore) worth of bids.

Digital assets of movies starring Tamil superstar Rajinikanth have also seen strong traction from buyers. The 17 NFTs of the film Sivaji: The Boss offered by NFT marketplace Diginoor.io in the price range of $99-1,500 were sold out. The platform will be offering more NFTs from the film on the actor’s birthday on December 12.

It looks like movie and cricket fans have a lot to look forward to in NFTs, especially with platforms not only getting more celebrities on board but also exploring new aspects.

Colexion plans to launch a virtual museum in a week’s time. Drawing parallels with various halls of fame and Madame Tussauds, Aggarwal said, “This is a personalized museum of celebrities where people can get to know about the journey of celebrities and get acquainted with their historic moments and exemplary achievements.”

Free for the first 100 days on the platform, Aggarwal said that they will follow the subscription model for the virtual museum which will be priced at around $2 a month.

NFTs, which are gaining steam not only in India but across the globe, have seen significant growth in terms of sales. According to data from market tracker DappRadar, global sales volumes of NFTs galloped to $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, an eightfold increase from the previous quarter.

India currently accounts for around 5 percent of the global NFT market, say experts, but NFT players are placing big bets on it as they estimate that 30 percent of those who dabble in cryptocurrencies will enter NFTs by next year.

Colexion’s Aggarwal is clear: “Our key focus is to enlarge the Indian NFT market.”