Ripple, the leading provider of enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions that are faster, more transparent and more cost-effective, announced a $250 million fund to provide creators with the financial, creative and technical support needed to explore and craft premium non-fungible token (NFT) and other tokenization projects on the XRP Ledger.

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“By starting with marketplaces and creators, our fund seeks to take the guesswork out of NFT projects to unlock unexplored tokenization use cases on the XRP Ledger.”

The heightened interest and boom in NFTs globally has introduced new revenue streams and business models while deepening the mainstream’s relationships with the communities, people and things they care about. However, when it comes to creating state-of-the-art NFTs, many creators face barriers to entry–including the fear their NFTs won’t sell and a lack of understanding when it comes to navigating NFT concepts. Developers, meanwhile, are often burdened with high transaction fees and clunky user experiences on marketplaces or platforms.

While digital art and collectibles have quickly captured public interest and popularity, the utility of NFTs goes far beyond these use cases. By providing creative and technical support to a diverse array of marketplaces, creators, artists and brands, Ripple’s Creator Fund seeks to enable longtail use cases for tokenization—for example, interactive experiences and fractional ownership.

Ripple is teaming up with innovative NFT marketplaces and creative agencies who recognize the potential of these unique tokenized assets and, as part of the launch, will have first access to the fund. Together, Ripple’s Creator Fund and its partners are accelerating the evolution of NFTs while eliminating the pain points associated with crafting compelling projects:

• Mintable – “Everything we do at Mintable centers around accessibility, and it’s time that we look at that holistically — creators of all disciplines and backgrounds need to have access to equal opportunities in the space,” said Zach Burks, CEO of Mintable. “There are so many untapped opportunities within the constantly evolving NFT ecosystem, and we’re excited to be deepening our partnership with Ripple to support their Creator Fund in order to encourage greater growth in the industry.”
• VSA Partners – “NFTs have been a source of huge excitement for creators, enabling new ways to build communities and meaningful brand equity,” said Sarah Lent, CMO of VSA Partners. “It’s clear that when creators and brands are deliberate with their NFT campaigns, it will have a long-lasting impact on their customers, partners, and the larger community. As a premier partner of the creator fund, VSA can help brands and artists think through the entire ecosystem of brand-building experiences, the community of fans to engage and deploy the strategic guidance and storytelling needed around NFTs to generate brand value.”
• mintNFT – “mintNFT is honored to be selected as a key partner to build the next-generation NFT 2.0 experience leveraging the XRP Ledger to connect fans with premium brands, content owners, and talent around the world,” said James Sun, founder and CEO of mintNFT.

“While NFTs have opened the door for a tokenized future, actually navigating these concepts is a different ball game for many,” said Monica Long, GM of RippleX at Ripple. “By starting with marketplaces and creators, our fund seeks to take the guesswork out of NFT projects to unlock unexplored tokenization use cases on the XRP Ledger.”

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Minting NFTs on the XRP Ledger will enrich the experience for creators seeking new ways of monetizing their works. For developers, the XRP Ledger’s innate performance advantages—speed, low cost and built-in royalties—make it ideally suited to drive NFT utility at scale, and without the need for Layer-2 protocols. Library support is also available to simplify NFT integrations and bypass direct XRPL development. The XRP Ledger is a decentralized, open-source blockchain. Its built-in decentralized exchange (DEX) provides fast settlement for tokenized assets of all types–including NFTs—while its Federated Consensus mechanism eliminates gas fees and is 120,000x more efficient than blockchains that rely on proof-of-work validation.