Crypto Payments Firm MoonPay Inks Deals With Universal Pictures, Death Row Records in NFT Push

Crypto payments provider MoonPay has inked a deal with several big-name entertainment brands in a bid to expand into the non-fungible token (NFT) market. Fox Corp., Universal Pictures, Creative Artists Agency, and Snoop Dogg's Death Row Records will create NFT collections using HyperMint, MoonPay's platform for minting digital assets. HyperMint is a “self-service, developer-focused platform” that allows companies, brands, and creative agencies to easily create, mint, and manage utility NFTs. MoonPay's announcement comes as the price of NFTs have plummeted by the broader crypto downturn.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Ivan Soto-Wright, MoonPay's co-founder and chief executive officer, said the company is eyeing sports, film, music, fashion and gaming as areas that could benefit from the technology. The platform and its underlying technology present a big opportunity for legacy brands like Universal and Fox that are sitting on decades of intellectual property.

"The potential of NFTs goes beyond collecting; it's the utility. You can essentially program anything into these NFTs over time, which is why we decided to focus on this new product offering," Soto-Wright told CNBC. "That's really making this shift possible; to go beyond collectability and program utility into these NFTs and there needs to be enterprise-grade tooling."

Founded in 2018, Miami-based MoonPay's software lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers, or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. It also sells its technology to other businesses including crypto website Bitcoin.com and NFT marketplace OpenSea, a model Soto-Wright calls "crypto-as-a-service."

MoonPay says it has been profitable since launching its platform in 2019. Its service is now used by more than 10 million customers in 160 countries.

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