Visa Unveils Program to Help Creators Interested in Building Business With NFTs

Visa has announced the launch of a new initiative, dubbed “Visa Creator Program,” to support the growth of the maverick NFT industry.

With the new initiative, the digital payments leader aims to help a global cohort of creators interested in building their business with non-fungible tokens.

Visa Creator Program

According to the official blog post, Visa Creator Program aims to help digital-first artists, musicians, fashion designers, and filmmakers advance their small businesses through NFTs. With each cycle, Visa plans to support a select group of entrepreneurs via the new initiative to educate them on the technology and platforms that form the basis of NFT commerce.

Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa, commented,

“NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy. We’ve been studying the NFT ecosystem and its potential impacts on the future of commerce, retail and social media. Through the Visa Creator Program, we want to help this new breed of small and micro businesses tap into new mediums for digital commerce.”

The initiative will target entrepreneurs working in art, music, fashion, and film looking to incorporate NFTs into their business model.

These include both novices – individuals who may have just minted their first non-fungible token or experienced ones – having many successful drops under their belt. It will offer creators technical and product mentorship, community building, access to thought leaders, exposure to Visa’s clients and partners, and a one-time stipend to help them kick-start the next phase of growth.

Helping Creators

Visa dipped its toes into the NFT industry when it purchased a CryptoPunk NFT for 49.5 ETH, which, in August last year, was valued at $160,000. According to Sheffield, the acquisition of CryptoPunk #7610 was made to understand “the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT” firsthand before facilitating the participation of Visa’s clients and partners.

Two months later, the company announced teaming up with NFT artist Micah Johnson to set up a program to help creators explore the industry better and leverage various public blockchain networks to develop and sell their digital works.

The US multinational financial behemoth revealed that it intends to provide a connection between creators and its network of payment partners in a way that would benefit the former and help amplify the reach of their audiences and accelerate business growth.