This Indian crypto exchange has launched the country’s first NFT marketplace — artists from India, South Asia get a new platform to showcase their work

• The WazirX marketplace will run on the Binance Smart Chain and will use the company’s own WRX token.
• The Binance Smart Chain was built by WazirX’s parent company, and one of the world’s top exchanges — Binance.
• The WazirX marketplace is a first of its kind for India and South Asia.

India’s largest crypto exchange, WazirX, today announced its own Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace. NFTs are digital tokens that exist on a blockchain and represent ownership of digital items, like artwork, music, etc. Unlike cryptocurrencies, NFTs aren’t “fungible”, meaning they cannot replace each other, something Bitcoins, Ethereum, and others can do. While cryptocurrencies can be used as currency, NFTs are more like trading cards, which can be exchanged, but one card can’t replace another.


WazirX’s NFT marketplace is a first of its kind for India. The company has been accepting applications from collectors and creators, and says it has received over 15000 applications already. The marketplace will include gas fees (a sum required to mint the NFT via a blockchain) of only $1 and host works from visual artist Vimal Chandran, anonymous street artist Tyler, wall mural artist Sneha Chakraborty, Montreal-based mixed media artist Ishita Banerjee, and automotive photographer Arjun Menon among others. WazirX has also whitelisted 300 creators who will be releasing their works on the marketplace later.

That said, unlike most NFT marketplaces, WazirX’s platform doesn’t run on the Ethereum blockchain. Instead, the WazirX marketplace runs on the Binance Smart Chain, a blockchain platform that was created by its parent company, Binance. It uses the WRX token for running transactions, and WazirX has committed 50,000 tokens as giveaways initially. The platform will follow a fixed price model for now, and it’s unclear whether WazirX will allow bidding for NFTs in the future.

Further, the platform will also have two different sections — Spotlight and Discover. While Spotlight is the curated side of the marketplace, the company said it will be releasing artworks from 50 selected artists on the Discover section every day. These will come from the 15,000 plus applications it has already received.

NFT: The future of cryptocurrency?

NFTs have gained prominence over the past year, after high-value sales by Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, billionaire Mark Cuban and more. Dorsey sold the first tweet ever for $2.9 million, while Cuban announced that he was building an NFT gallery called Lazy.com. Canadian digital artist Grimes has sold her artwork for $6 million too, while musicians Kings of Leon, became the first band ever to distribute a digital album through NFTs.

While WazirX claims that the company’s marketplace is the first of its kind for South Asia, it will likely compete with popular marketplaces like Ethernity, and Valuables BY CENT. The company also said that its NFTs will be transferable to other blockchains, like Ethereum, later.


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