Line Plus Tech, a subsidiary of Japan’s largest social network Line Corporation, has launched a non-fungible token (NFT) collection for Line Friends. Line is jointly owned by Softbank and Korean firm Naver.
The initiative will be operated through Line Blockchain. The collection will feature three characters and be given to 600,000 users who successfully answer a quiz event. A fourth NFT will be awarded to users who collect all three digital characters.
Line Friends is a group of characters created as stickers for the Line App. Now they are featured on physical toys, licensed to third parties, and there have been over 260 Line Friends retail stores worldwide.
Line’s entrance into the NFT space in Japan helps to bring the technology more mainstream. The company operates the largest social media application in the country, with about 86 million monthly active users in Japan alone. The messaging app is also popular in Thailand and Taiwan and has 200 million users globally.
One of the initiatives Line has launched that helps to promote its NFTs is a beta version of an NFT market on Line’s crypto wallet and exchange Line Bitmax. The exchange supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Line’s cryptocurrency Link.
Line had also launched a central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform targeting the Bank of Korea’s CBDC project. However, it lost out to Ground X, the company behind Klaytn’s public permissioned blockchain. Ground X is a subsidiary of Kakao, South Korea’s largest social network.
Meanwhile, Nomura invested in Line’s blockchain subsidiary to expand its financial services.
