The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest stock exchange in the world, has joined the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) trend. The organization will auction NFTs the celebrate the first trade on the stock market of several companies.
Spotify, Snowflake, Unity, DoorDash, Roblox and Coupang have already announced they agree to the sale of their first ever trade, and more are expected to join. Notably, three of these stocks are entertainment-oriented.
When a new company goes public on the NYSE, its CEO strikes the famous first trade bell and the processing of orders for stocks in the company commences. And in the capital markets sector, banks create ‘tombstones’ of the deals they were involved in. These NYSE NFTs merge the two concepts with an animation of a gavel striking a bell, followed by a stock’s tombstone.
Intuitively, only one trade among millions can be the first. Similar to the auction of the first tweet, the NYSE wants to sell the First Trade of companies as NFTs. The sale of the NFTs is in no way related to owning shares in the company or being involved in the stock market at all, it simply represents an abstract ownership of the first share trade of a company on the public stock exchange.
It’s an intriguing concept. For an individual with no ties to a company, owning a digital representation of its First Trade seems meaningless unless they’re a die-hard fan. But for the founders, CEOs and other relevant people in the organization, the NFT may have some intrinsic value. Additionally, given the recent hype around NFTs and the staggering prices they have sold for, some investors might see potential in the NYSE NFTs. It will be interesting to see what kind of audience these NFTs attract and whether it will diverge from the crypto-savvy individuals that have been participating in the recent showstopper NFT sales.
Meanwhile, anything NFT-related is in the spotlight, although there has been a little pull back in the market. Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski sold an NFT collection for $1.6 million last month and his teammate Tom Brady is set to launch his very own NFT platform. Yesterday Major League Baseball announced its entrance. Furthermore, following Beeple’s $69 million digital art sale at Christie’s, CryptoPunks will also be sold at the auction house next month and Sotheby’s is preparing their very own digital art auction.
