- A new ‘Royal Mint’ NFT will be issued before the end of the summer.
- The overall market value of NFTs plunged from $23 billion to just under $10 billion.
Investors ‘flipped’ non-fungible tokens, crypto assets that represent a digital property like a photograph or video, or even virtual world land, for-profit within days last year for significant capital gains. Auction companies have been eager to cash in, offering NFTs that resemble simple drawings for millions of dollars without any actual goods changing hands. A Christie’s auction in March sold an NFT artwork for $69.3 million, a record for the auction house.
According to the UK government, a new ‘Royal Mint’ NFT will be issued before the end of the summer. As Her Majesty’s Treasury noted on Twitter, the move is evidence of the UK government’s commitment to a forward-looking attitude towards crypto assets.
Global Crypto Asset Hub
The initial tweet was quickly followed by a second Tweet, inviting followers to even further information on the government’s plans “to make the UK a global cryptoasset hub.” “Stablecoins” (cryptocurrencies tethered to a reserve asset, often fiat money) and legislation for a “financial market infrastructure sandbox” are two of the Treasury’s proposed measures, according to the page. An “emblem” of the UK’s forward-looking approach to crypto-assets is the goal of the Royal Mint NFT.
The announcement of an NFT initiative by the UK government comes at an intriguing moment. A growing data collection points to an unsustainable bubble in the NFT market. According to Fortune, between January and March, the average selling price of an NFT fell by more than 60%. As a result, the overall market value of NFTs plunged from $23 billion to just under $10 billion. Schemes have tarnished NFTs’ image, which wasn’t excellent, to begin with. This decline in value is presumably the result of many scams. However, the government has not provided any information regarding how their NFT will operate, what it represents, how many NFTs will be coined, or what the cash earned by these NFTs will be utilized for.
