CNN to start selling NFTs of memorable historical ‘moments’

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

CNN is getting into the game of selling non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs.

Beginning in late June, the WarnerMedia-owned channel will “mint” NFTs on the Flow blockchain of important moments from the news network’s 41-year history and sell them as digital collectibles.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first crop of news “moments” are yet to be announced, but CNN says the NFTs could include coverage from presidential elections, CNN exclusives, or moments from world history.

The tokenholder will then be able to display the moments on a user page in the “vault”.

To produce the NFTs, CNN says that it is working with a third-party company to produce physical versions. Some limited-edition sets “will include a premium video display case that will render a physical representation of the Moment on a screen”.

Likewise, users won’t need to pay CNN’s NFTs with cryptocurrency; they can buy their CNN moments the old-fashioned way, with a credit card. That said, users will still need to create a digital wallet with the blockchain company Blocto.

Over the past year, NFTs have taken off in music, art and sports, created and sold in marketplaces for crypto-goods with names like Rarible and OpenSea, or in collaboration with auction houses.

“It’s the Wild West,” Nelson Rosario, an intellectual property lawyer in Chicago who specialises in the cryptocurrency exchange, told The Independent last month.

He adds that NFT purchasers often receive different rights over an image than they might expect with a traditional painting or sculpture. The international nature of blockchains, which often have nodes – the machines validating information – located around the world, also raised questions of whether countries would recognise the copyright rights provided in the terms of an NFT sale.