IOI
BEENEXT, Better Capital, Cloud Capital, and other investors led a $3 million early investment round for blockchain company Lysto.
Binny Bansal (Co-Founder, Flipkart), Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani (Co-Founders, Polygon), Pradyumna Agarwal (Managing Director, Temasek), Nitish Mittersain (Founder, Nazara Games), Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED), Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dhar (Co-Founders, BookMyShow), Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com)
Sadiq Ahamed founded Lysto in 2021 to create APIs, tools, and infrastructure that enable the production and distribution of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The startup’s NFT stack makes NFT adoption easier for businesses looking to tap into the growing market for the technology.
What Exactly Is An NFT? What’s the big deal about it?
An NFT is a one-of-a-kind token that may be used to confirm digital asset ownership on a blockchain ledger. The shared ledger would be maintained by hundreds of computers all around the world, making it impossible to fake (theoretically). There are no technological limitations to what digital assets may be tokenised: everything from books to artwork to video game characters is fair game.
“NFTs are becoming an integral part of business and culture. With its applications across industries, it is a multi-billion dollar industry, largely restricted to digital art and collectables. As the market expands, we see that every e-commerce player, every production (entertainment, gaming, animation), and every brand would want to launch NFTs to raise funds and monetise their offerings,” said Sadiq Ahamed, founder and CEO of Lysto.
The who’s who of Bollywood and the international cricketing community appears to have joined the wild rush to cash in on India’s NFT and Crypto boom, from Sunny Leone to Salman Khan; from Amitabh Bachchan to Kamal Haasan; from Kieron Pollard to Danielle Wyatt.
Is It A Boom Or A Bust?
The NFT collection of Amitabh Bachchan sold for $966,000. (INR 7.18 Cr). Audio recordings of the actor reading his father poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Madushala poetry book were included in the collection.
Mike Winkelmann’s (Beeple’s) sale of his artwork “The First 5000 Days,” which sold for $69 million at a Christie’s auction in March this year, sparked newfound interest and massive amounts of speculation in the NFT market for a few months before average daily NFT sales fell by as much as 70% in two months.
In the Indian market, this type of course correction has yet to occur. Investors and producers alike continue to take advantage of the increased public attention to achieve record-breaking sales.
While a ‘bubble bust’ or course correction for the Indian market is certain, it may not be as terrible as one may think. When the focus turns away from token speculation, it’s possible that it’ll shift to all of the other uses for an immutable decentralised record of ownership and transactions.
