NFTs Mushroom Into Billion-Dollar Market With Help From Alchemy
- Blockchain startup says it has grown 54-fold since August
- All major NFT platforms use Alchemy to connect to Ethereum
The $1 billion market for non-fungible tokens has seemingly come out of nowhere to capture the imagination of artists and blockchain enthusiasts all over the world. While the projects range from eight-bit pixelated portraits to elaborate ink and paint creations, what they all have in common is the behind-the-scenes startup Alchemy.
The San Francisco-based firm was founded in 2017 by Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau and only opened to general, rather than private, customers in August. Since then, transactions using Alchemy technology have grown 54-fold to power $25 billion worth of Ethereum projects such as decentralized finance startups and NFT platforms, Viswanathan said in an interview. Alchemy’s first customer was Matt Hall, the co-creator of CryptoPunks. Hall and his partner John Watkinson have since watched as more than $130 million of the low-fi pixelated people have changed hands of various NFT platforms, with the priciest selling recently for about $7.6 million.