Published on: 22/06/2022

Crypto start-up MoonPay partners with Fox, Universal Pictures to launch NFT platform HyperMint

MoonPay has announced a partnership with Universal Pictures, Fox Corporation, and many other entertainment companies to launch an NFT platform called HyperMint.

“MoonPay is thrilled to officially launch a ground-breaking new offering that will be a cornerstone of our product suite. We’re calling it HyperMint,” MoonPay wrote on its website.

“HyperMint is a simple self-service platform that enables anyone to create and deploy smart contracts. We’ve built a robust and flexible interface that allows users to mint, manage, and distribute NFTs at scale. Think AWS for NFTs.”

Earlier in an interview with CNBC, MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said the goal of the new NFT platform was to enable agencies, enterprises, and large brands to join the NFT industry by releasing digital artwork.

“The potential of NFTs goes beyond collecting; it’s the utility. You can essentially program anything into these NFTs over time, which is why we decided to focus on this new product offering,” he said.

“That’s really making this shift possible; to go beyond collectability and program utility into these NFTs, and there needs to be enterprise-grade tooling.”

Soto-Wright insisted that the project would benefit its partners, which included the American record label Death Row Records. The label was founded in 1991 by Dr. Dre and other musicians. It was recently bought by rapper Snoop Dogg, who said he wanted to restore it to its former glory.

About MoonPay

MoonPay was established in 2018. Based in Miami, the popular crypto start-up recorded significant growth in the last few years after capitalizing on the popularity of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

MoonPay said its new NFT platform would help brands and companies to shift into Web 3.0.

“Until now, a lack of user-friendly NFT infrastructure has hampered the ability of creators, brands, and enterprises to properly implement an NFT strategy. There simply hasn’t been an easy way to deploy NFTs at scale,” the announcement continued while citing the “50x” growth the NFT industry experienced in 2021.

MoonPay first confirmed the news on Twitter. It added that Soto-Wright would formally announce the plan on Tuesday at the NFT.NYC conference.

“Today, our CEO @isotowright demonstrated our new minting-as-a-service tool to the public for the first time ever,” MoonPay wrote on Twitter.

The project is not MoonPay’s first partnership with big names. Recently, MoonPay announced that it raised $87m in a Series A round of funding from more than 60 celebrity investors, including singer Justin Bieber, rapper Snoop Dogg, tennis ace Maria Sharapova, and actor Bruce Willis.

The funding round ended with the company pushing its valuation to $3.4bn in November 2021.

MoonPay was adamant that HyperMint’s end-to-end Web 3.0 infrastructure would speed up the deployment time for NFT and Web 3.0 projects, reducing it from months to days. HyperMint will then allow brands and creators to market their offerings faster.

“By making it easy to mint NFTs at scale, and allowing anyone to weave utility, value, and innovation into their digital offerings, HyperMint will serve an ever-expanding market that will welcome countless new entrants into Web3,” the company said.

“The possibilities are endless. We can’t wait to see where this leads.”