You can now buy, sell and display NFT art on your LG TV
LG has followed in the footsteps of Samsung and announced a new NFT (non-fungible token) platform for its TVs that will allow users to buy, sell and display their digital artwork in the living room.
Called LG Art Lab, the platform is rolling out today to all LG TVs running webOS 5.0 or later and will be directly accessible from the home screen. The company says this new NFT marketplace serves as a “convenient, one-stop solution” for viewing and trading NFTs.
LG will support the new platform with what it calls LG Art Drops, which will profile artists and will serve to preview new works coming soon to the platform in “drops.” These drops will contain a countdown allowing all interested parties to follow exactly when a new NFT becomes available.
The LG Art Lab is built in collaboration with Hedera, a blockchain provider that claims to have the lowest carbon footprint. LG says it is the “most widely used, sustainable, enterprise-based public ledger for the decentralized economy” and “makes buying and selling as easy as possible, with on-screen QR codes that allow users to quickly complete transactions via Wallypto – the company’s cryptocurrency wallet for smartphones.”
Once an NFT is purchased, it can be traded on the LG Art Lab Marketplace, and the entire transaction history is also visible there. All owned NFTs can be viewed in the My Collection screen.
“To help users gain a deeper understanding of their favorite NFTs and the creative minds behind them, the platform also presents informative artwork descriptions and short films that illuminate the artists’ creative processes,” says LG. “Users can follow and learn more about each artist in the app’s profile feature, and will even have the opportunity to meet some of them at upcoming LG-sponsored art events.”
The timing of LG’s announcement is somewhat telling. Nothing says “maybe no one wants to see this” quite like dropping an announcement on the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. It is very likely that LG has been working in this marketplace for a while, back when the NFT boom was in full swing. But now, a year after it peaked, the NFT market has plunged. This year alone, sales volume has fallen from $5.7 billion in January to $903 million in July, while transactions are down about 50%.
So yes, customers can now buy, sell, trade and view NFTs on their LG TVs – but it’s unlikely that very many will.
Image credit: LG
