The $250 million Creator Fund from Ripple, which is intended to support the creation of NFT-related projects on the XRP Ledger, has announced the second round of recipients who have been chosen to participate.
The metaverse platform 9LEVEL9, which will offer virtual event tickets as NFTs, the Japanese NFT marketplace Anifie, the NFT sports platform Capital Block, the XRP NFT marketplace NFT Master, the NFT IP firm SYFR Projects, the NFT membership project ThinkingCrypto, and Cross-Metaverse Avatars are all joining the fund’s second wave.
In an interview with Decrypt, Boris Alergant, Head of DeFi Markets at Ripple, stated that the fund’s goal was to hasten the NFT economy of XRP. The fund’s first wave of participants was announced in April.
NFTs are distinctive blockchain tokens that represent ownership and can be linked to a variety of different assets, including event tickets, digital artwork, and tangible goods. According to Dune Analytics, OpenSea, the top NFT marketplace, saw just under $350 million in total volume traded on Ethereum in September, which continues to be the most popular blockchain for NFTs today.
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is a decentralized, open blockchain that is managed by a large, international developer community. It is made to be quick, efficient with energy, and trustworthy.
Following Ripple’s decision to dismiss the SEC lawsuit, XRP increases by 44% in a week.
“The XRP Ledger and the Ripple Creator Fund are leveling the playing field for creatives. According to Sean O’Leary, the founder of SYFR Projects, “it is up to teams like SYFR Projects who are right in the middle of the music industry to innovate leveraging the capabilities of the XRPL.”
Alergant claimed that members of the XRP Ledger Foundation, Ripple, and an unnamed community organization evaluated and cast votes on each of the Creator Fund applications submitted by Ripple.
Alergant stated, “We’re definitely committed to that $250 million and to seeing that innovation on the ledger,” but he did not say how much would go to each creator.
We made an effort not to blow it all at once, he said.
Some people might be surprised to learn that Ripple is continuing to allocate the entire $250 million despite the current bear market, in which NFT volume has fallen to a mere fraction of what it was in the first and second quarters of this year. Alergant, however, does not believe that anyone should be alarmed by the current crypto downturn.
“I have witnessed bear markets. Ripple has experienced numerous bear markets, as you may be aware, Alergant said.
He recalled that during bear markets, “the innovation really comes out when people sit down and build and these interesting new use cases and awesome things come out.”
A sidechain for the XRP Ledger that is compatible with Ethereum is coming from Ripple.
In particular, Alergant is enthusiastic about XRPL-based NFTs. Alergant thinks the XRPL NFT standard, dubbed XLS-20, will make the experience “more accessible” for Web2 developers interested in NFTs.
Instead of writing code for smart contracts, “Web2 developers can really use the NFT standard and interact with it simply with API calls,” he claimed.
The XRPL Mainnet has not yet adopted XLS-20 as of the time of writing.
For its Creator Fund, Ripple has gotten about 4,000 applications in total. Sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, it intends to reveal the third and final wave of Creator Fund recipients.