Visa is launching an NFT program for small businesses as it sees e-commerce opportunities in a $100 billion 'creator economy'

• Visa is launching a program for entrepreneurs working in the creative arts to accelerate their businesses using NFTs.
• The Visa Creator Program will work with people in the worlds of art, music, fashion, and film to "deepen their fluency in crypto commerce and traditional payments."

Visa is starting a program for entrepreneurs working in creative industries to accelerate their small businesses through non-fungible tokens, highlighting the payment giant's view that the crypto space is a key channel for innovation and growth.

The Visa Creator Program is a one-year immersion program that will work with people in the worlds of art, music, fashion, and film to "deepen their fluency in crypto commerce and traditional payments," Visa said in a blog post Wednesday.

"NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy," said Cuy Sheffield, Visa's head of crypto, in the post.

The so-called creator economy has an estimated market size of more than $100 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing small-business categories.

Visa will link people admitted into the program to mentorships with its team of crypto product and strategy leaders and will extend opportunities for engagement with Visa's network of clients, among other actions. The company will also provide a one-time stipend to creators to help them jumpstart their next phase of growth.

"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," said Sheffield.

Visa made a splash in the crypto world last year by purchasing CryptoPunk 7610, its first NFT, for around $150,000. Sheffield in August said Visa's purchase of an NFT was aimed in part at helping its clients understand the space better.

Sheffield told Insider last year that business-to-business payments are a big opportunity for Visa's crypto strategy.