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The twist? You have no idea what piece of digital art you might
purchase.
"It's the crypto curious, the people who tried to buy
cryptocurrency or they were interested in buying an NFT, but
they just hit too many barriers," Neon CEO Kyle Zappitell said
in an interview with Reuters, of the vending machine's target
customer.
Located in a small storefront in Lower Manhattan's financial
district with a sign outside saying "NFT ATM," it looks like a
traditional vending machine, but offers QR codes that come on
slips in small paper boxes. The drops range in price from $5.99
to $420.69.
Once the QR code is scanned, the user can see their new piece of
art on any smartphone, laptop or tablet.
At the Lower Manhattan site, the codes lead to two categories of
digital art pieces, either a color or a picture of a pigeon.
For Zappitell, the element of mystery is a natural extension of
the digital art space.
"As a NFT collector, over time, one of the things you love is
the randomness of, 'Which one are you going to get?'" he said.
"So that's one of the exciting aspects."
The art pieces sold in the vending machine rely on the Solana
blockchain, which ensures carbon-neutral transactions.
And while digital art is mostly offered via cryptocurrencies,
Neon's vending machine accepts fiat currency - you can use a
credit card to make a purchase.
Starting with $3 million in seed money, Neon says it hopes to
roll out more vending machines in malls and other public spaces.
"That's one of the really powerful messages of this, is how it's
using this old world technology to enable the adoption of new
world technology," said Zappitell.
(Reporting by Dan Fastenberg; Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing
by Leslie Adler)
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