AP will launch its own marketplace for photo NFTs from award-winning photojournalists amid a frenzy of brands and companies joining the growing NFT industry.

In January, the Associated Press will launch a photo NFT marketplace, running on Polygon and featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning photos. The Polygon is a sidechain of scaling solution for Ethereum. The marketplace was built by Xooa, the platform that creates white-label NFT marketplaces for brands and IP owners. In addition, MetaMask, Binance, and Coinbase will soon be integrated in the future.

Polygon is significantly more energy-efficient than Ethereum and can conduct much faster and cheaper transactions.

According to AP's director of blockchain and data licensing, Dwayne Desaulniers, “For 175 years, AP’s photographers have recorded the world’s biggest stories through gripping and poignant images that continue to resonate today.”

He adds, "With Xooa’s technology, we are proud to offer these tokenized pieces to a fast-growing global audience of photography NFT collectors.”

NFT will initially feature award-winning photos from AP photojournalists on subjects like war, space, climate, and climate change.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photos will be featured every two weeks. The NFT includes metadata, such as a photo's location, date, equipment, and technical settings.

In addition to cryptocurrency payments and credit card transactions, AP will offer secondary market sales as well. As per a press release, proceeds will go toward "funding factual, unbiased AP journalism"

In October, the Associated Press signed a deal with Chainlink that would enable AP news data to be provided and sold to applications relying on blockchains.

There are other news organizations that have shown interest in using blockchain in journalism. In June 2021, CNN announced an NFT project called "Vault by CNN: Moments That Changed Us." The project tokenized a series of historical "news moments" from the media company.

Pavan A

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA