Momint is launching a South African social media marketplace for artists, filmmakers, musicians, sportspeople and creators to sell their works as NFTs.
Non-fungible tokens (NFT) have been put under the spotlight as artists and celebrities use them to sell digital works.
Momint seeks to enable local creators - filmmakers, artists, musicians, sportspeople etc - to monetise their work and sell directly to fans.
Momint is going live with NFT offerings from sports stars Bryan Habana and AB de Villiers, musicians Goldfish and The Kiffness, influencer Diipa Khosla and filmmaker Dan Mace.
How would it work?
Fans do not need to buy NFTs using crypto-currency, as is the case with other offerings. On Momint, all use good old Rands (fiat currency) to buy unique items from their favourite creators. Fans can sign up on here.
What NFTs sold in South Africa were used for
Momint beta tested the app two weeks’ ago with an auction of a 3D turntable of rugby icon Bryan Habana racing a cheetah. Habana became the first South African sports star to sell an NFT.
The beta was a huge success and included 800 people from 25 countries. It raised over R150 000 for the Bryan Habana Foundation.
Momint also auctioned some limited edition coins, in conjunction with Smutby (an exclusive members club for decision makers, and celebrities), which will contribute funds to the SPCA wildlife division to help in the aftermath of the recent fires in Cape Town. Cumulative sales during Momint’s closed beta release reached over R300 000 across two days.
What is an NFT?
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are the latest cryptocurrency phenomenon that is going mainstream and taking the world by storm.
NFTs transform digital works of art into a unique, verifiable asset that can be easy to trade on the blockchain.
“An NFT is a digital certificate of ownership. In the past it was impossible to prove ownership of digital works, which can be easily copied, pasted, altered and shared online. Using NFTs, if a work is altered, even by a fraction, the fingerprint of that work changes, and it’s quite easy to see it’s not the same digital work,” said Momint CEO and co-founder Ahren Posthumus.
In a bid to encourage creativity and quality content, Momint restricts the number of posts a content creator can post per week.
This will help ensure that creators don’t all post the same types of content, as seen on many social media platforms, said CTO and co-founder Adam Romyn.
NFTs can be sold via auction or directly to a fan for a fixed price. The only cost to the creator is a 12% auction fee or a 0,5% direct sales fee that Momint charges once it is sold.
Fans can collect and display moments on the Momint app, adding a social element to the offering alongside standard features such as likes, comments and follows.
Momint is in talks with a number of local celebrities to launch further NFTs in the near future and has plans to take the platform global.
“It was wonderful to be part of the Momint beta and be the first South African athlete to sell an NFT. We’ve seen NFTs really taking off for athletes, particularly in the US, and they present an exciting avenue for sportspeople, musicians, and so on to commercialise and monetise their work,” said Bryan Habana.
Filmmaker Dan Mace says Momint offers a great way to support creators. “It’s another point of contact for followers to be able to own something they’ve always wanted,” he comments. “It enables anyone to not just appreciate but actually own art within a digital space from anywhere in the world, to have access to unique, scarce pieces of work.
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