Ripple’s Creator Fund Invests $250M in the Future of Phygital NFTs

This season, Ripple’s Creator Fund revealed its Wave 3 of investments – and the grand winners are phygital NFTs! Accordingly, the giant company allocated $250 million to further innovate asset tokenization. The news comes as hybrid NFTs are skyrocketing in popularity as many brands IRL join the Web3 world.

News Why Did Ripple’s Creator Fund Invest in Phygital NFTs?

Earlier in January, the Chief Technical Officer at Ripple David Schwartz said that the new wave of Web3 assets would focus on utility NFTs – and he was right. In fact, Ripple’s entire executive team predicted that this year we’ll see more phygital NFT projects than ever.

After all, we’ve seen more tokenized assets launch in recent months than ever before since the 2021 NFT boom. In order to support the movement, Ripple’s Creator Fund invested $250 million to support phygital NFT creators and developers.

News Who Does Ripple Support for Tokenization?

The team at Ripple recently revealed the top seven independent Web3 creators they support. From artists to music labels and developers, they share the same goal: bridging NFTs and physical assets via XRP Ledger. Here’s the list:

• Emporio Records: a record label IRL aiming to offer fans exclusive access to new music and merch via NFTs;
• Robert Chew: a digital comic book artist ready to give physical comic book editions to each of his NFT holders;
• Mike Sotirakos: Web3 expert helping physical artists join the NFT space via the XRPL ecosystem;
• Hot Import Nights: a ticketing service company wanting to drop NFT tickets for real-life events and merch;
• TraumAmnesia: the NFT artist aims to offer real-life experiences and artworks to all of the community members;
• Natacha Einat: as a digital artist with a savvy NFT community, Natacha is planning to offer physical artworks and art Masterclasses;
• Adrian Balastegui: an experienced physical artist aiming to bring his canvas artworks to the NFT market along with physical signed prints.

News What Are Phygital NFTs?

The term “Phygital” is literally a combination of the words “digital” and “physical.” Although it’s been around since 2007, you’ve probably only heard about it recently, thanks to NFTs.

In short, phygital NFTs are digital assets linked to physical objects, experiences, or anything else that exists in real life. One of the latest examples is Harry Potter: the iconic series released physical limited-edition jewelry including an NFC tag that links each piece to its corresponding NFT.

Meanwhile, the renowned Scottish whisky platform “The Whisky Barrel” launched unique NFTs for their single-barrel scotch whisky. In this case, the NFTs serve as an assurance for collectors that their whisky bottles are not counterfeit. Many other brands have already launched their phygital products, too, including Nike, Funko Pop, and Budsies, to name a few.

To conclude, phygital NFTs are undoubtedly changing the world of trading IRL and virtually as we speak.