The non-fungible token (NFT) market has continued to expand at an unfathomable pace all through 2021, as is best highlighted by the fact that over the course of Q3 2021 alone the sales of these novel assets surged by 705% – with $5.2 billion worth of transactions taking place during August alone.
NFTs, in their most basic sense, can be described as digital offerings that can be used to represent monetary value in relation to a wide array of assets, ranging from digital art to collectibles, to real estate, and everything else in between. Furthermore, due to the fact that they help weed out the need for any middlemen, they are able to maximize the earning potential of their creators.
Therefore, it comes as no secret that these tokens have been continually adopted by everyone under the sun, from casual crypto enthusiasts to celebrities such as Snoop Dogg · Naomi Osaka, Jay-Z, Method Man, Doja Cat, amongst many others.
NFTs from space see the light of day
As a result of growing interest in this fast-evolving space, many novel NFTs have continued to make their way into the market recently. In this regard, leading GameFi firm Digital Entertainment Asset Pte. Ltd (DEA) has entered into a partnership with Japanese marketing giant Bascule Inc. to help facilitate the launch of an all-new, limited edition NFT that features real-time photos from the International Space Station (ISS).
The offering is a first of its kind and represents the start of a radically different trend that has yet to be witnessed within this sector. To elaborate further on the matter, come 2022, interested individuals will be able to not only be able to obtain a real-time view of the earth from the ISS but also have the opportunity to lay claim to NFTs that will be minted directly from space.
In all, a total of 2022 NFTs will be issued in order to symbolically represent the turn of the new year, with the images being captured promptly after the dawn of midnight (00:00 UTC/GMT) 1 January from the ISS. Furthermore, a little over 20% of all collected proceeds are set to be donated to the International Astronomical Project — helping the organization acquire futuristic telescopic equipment that can spur the development of space explorations globally.
A closer look at the NFTs being minted
In all, there will be two distinct types of NFTs that are set to be published as part of the project, with both offerings being directly published on the ‘The First Space Sunrise 2022’ landing page.
Referred to as ‘The First Space Sunrise 2022’ and ‘Astro-Dogu 2022’, each of these collections will run till a total of 2,022 images have been minted — with each offering being released in real-time and being made available to interested personnel on a first come first serve basis.
From a pricing perspective, each image that is a part of ‘The First Space Sunrise 2022’ collection will be sold for 0.2022 ETH while those affiliated with the ‘Astro-Dogu 2022’ collection will be made available for a base sum of just 0.101 ETH.
Looking ahead
Heading into the future, Bascule Inc’s Representative Director Masayoshi Boku recently expressed his desire to keep working in a direction that connects various space entities with individuals interested in such exploratory endeavors. In fact, the firm is also actively working to host a live space program — referred to as the ’90-minute Trip Around the Earth’ — that is expected to make its live debut sometime in 2022. Therefore it will be interesting to see how things play out for the firm from here on end.
