WazirX launches NFT marketplace for Indian artists and creators

• Indian crypto exchange WazirX has announced a NFT marketplace for Indian artists.
• It is one of the first marketplaces for NFTs in India.
• A NFT is a digital asset and it can be in the form of a picture, audio, video or even a tweet.

Indian crypto exchange WazirX has announced the launch of a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace for Indian artists and creators. The company has said that it is one of the first marketplaces for NFTs in India.

The NFT marketplace from WazirX is being spearheaded by Sandesh B Suvarna, a Canada-based entrepreneur. Film actor Vishakha Singh has also joined the firm as an advisor.

Speaking about the launch of its NFT marketplace, Nischal Shetty, founder of WazirX, said, “Both digital creators and collectors stand to benefit from the WazirX NFT marketplace. As of now, we are working around a certain nitty-gritty to make NFTs more lucrative for our customers.”

What is a non-fungible token (NFT)?

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a one-of-its kind digital asset that can be in the form of art pieces, audio files, videos, programs, digital goods and even tweets. What makes NFT unique is that it is non-fungible in nature, meaning that it cannot be replaced by another identical item and its copies cannot be created after its purchase.

“Like the status of cryptocurrencies and Blockchain, even the non-fungible tokens that are NFTs are not recognised under any of the regulations in India. Having said that since the nature of NFTs is different from cryptocurrencies, there does not seem to be any specific restriction on usage of NFTs,” said Rashmi Deshpande, partner at law firm Khaitan & Co.

“Under the given legal structure, NFTs can at the most, be treated as a digital commodity and have taxation implications as any other asset. One needs to be clear that since NFTs are not competing with fiat currency in any possible way, there is no major issue on their usage in India as of now,” Deshpande explained.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet on the platform for $2.9 million in an NFT-based transaction last month.

The launch of the WazirX NFT marketplace will allow Indian creators to place their digital assets for auction over the block-chain based marketplace and earn royalty.

What will be the charge for auctioning on the WazirX NFT marketplace?

WazirX has said that it will not charge its customers for creating and listing NFTs on its platform. However, a gas fee has to be paid to miners as NFT uses blockchains that allow smart contracts. A gas fee is the cost of the computational power used to verify the transaction.

WazirX has added that it is working on removing this cost to make NFT minting more attractive for creators.

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