On Monday, October 3, at Landmark Event Centre, VI, Lagos, Technext hosted the second edition of the largest blockchain gathering in Africa, hosting enthusiasts and experts with the theme “Blockchain and DeFi: Beyond the Hype“.
Technext Coinference 2.0 had about 2,000 attendees, two keynote presentations and four breakout sessions, one of which was ‘Making money from NFTs.’
The session, moderated by Omoleye Omoruyi, a journalist at Technext, had the Founder/CEO of Hashgreed, Efosa Ighodaro, the President at Panaramic, Tunji Anjorin, and an NFT creator, Adisa Olashile as panellists.
When asked about his NFT journey and how he got to sell his viral NFT – Baba Onilu, Adisa said:
“I was a mobile photographer who took photos of my friends back in university. I had no idea about NFTs. A few years later, I learned about NFTs from a schoolmate, and he got to learn about it and started trading NFTs.”
On how he got to sell Baba Onilu, he said, “I didn’t expect to make money that day, I just saw the old man, took his picture, the picture went viral, and a collector reached out to me to mint it, and he’ll buy it. I minted it, and it got sold.”
He told the audience that he gave the old man 50% of the money due to the fact that he didn’t expect to make money that particular day.
On minting and trading NFTs
“We have to create African art and take it to the world through the NFTs” – Efosa Ighodaro
Efosa described how Hashgreed can help make NFT trading easy for Africans.
On Hashgreed, we’ve made buying and selling NFTs, and it is easy to get started. You can create your NFT on the platform for as low as 0.001 KSS, which will be multiplied by five and makes it easier for NFT creators and traders to mint and sell NFTs.
Efosa Ighodaro
He further described how Hashgreed aims to take NFTs to the next level in Africa with a platform where you can gain access to different types of NFTs – Music NFTs, Startup NFTs, Services NFTs, and lots more.
“We’ve partnered with art galleries like Nike Art Gallery that can showcase your NFTs, and in future, we would have movies which would have your NFTs showcased in them,” Efosa said.
On trading NFTs safely
In response to a question on how to trade securely with NFTs and ensure you don’t get scammed, Tunji Anjorin said:
“In NFTs, you should always do your research, in fact, whatever you do in life. Firstly, check the project. Are their founders doxed? Meaning, are they known? Or undoxed? Are they unknown? Also, check their discord community to whether they have bots, as some channels will have over 250,000 members and they’ll all be bots.
“Next, only click on the project’s official links, making sure you don’t make any mistake in the spellings as a simple mistake could cost you all your funds.”
Staying away from suspicious links is the best way to protect your assets from hackers and scammers- Tunji Anjorin
Do we need ‘backyard runs’ to sell NFTs?
In response to a question on how true it is that you need to have “long legs” (underground workings) to sell your NFTs and trade on the market, Tunji said, “yes, you need connections as when people get to know your art and trust you, you’ll get to sell your NFTs.”
Adisa reiterated his point of view by saying that without connections or a strong network, your NFTs may not reach the right places for them to be eventually sold.
Efosa also described how Hashgreed aims to help NFT creators have connections to sell their NFTs. He said, “Come join us, and we’ll be your legs in your NFT journey.”
Does the NFT space have a future in Nigeria?
On the issue of the growth or death of the NFT space in Nigeria, Efosa stated that “in the future, we’ll be seeing more celebrities in Africa use NFTs. NFTs will be used in movies and NFTs will be used as a way of promoting art in Africa on a global scale. As an individual, you should think about creative ways to adopt NFTs into your lives. It starts from you, and we can all contribute to the future of NFTs in Africa.”
Adisa mentioned that he didn’t know he could do what he did with Baba Onilu. So, he sees a future in the NFT space in Africa. Tunji reiterated saying notwithstanding the decrease in the hype, the NFT space is going to pick up the pace.
Indeed, NFTs are more than just art of pieces as they revolutionise the way we create content, distribute content, and interact with content as creators, users and contributors.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
