by Recently, the illustrations for Brave Girls’ new song were introduced as NFTs, which are still unfamiliar to the general public. It was released by Dunamu, which operates the digital asset exchange Upbit, and Dunamu plans to continue presenting related content in the future.
Dunamu joined hands with JYP Entertainment (JYP) of singer and music producer Park Jin-young in June. The two sides signed a business alliance to promote the NFT business in earnest. JYP, the first sizeable domestic agency to participate in related companies, will establish JYP Three Sixty as a subsidiary to promote intellectual property (IP)-based businesses. The industry is predicting that JYP Three Six will play a specific role in NFT-related companies.
Accordingly, JYP increases the possibility of NFTizing K-Pop artist-related content owned by JYP, such as Twice and Itzy.
In addition, Abyss Company, to which Sunmi and Urban Zakapa belong, will also engage in related businesses with the NFT platform Define. Last month, singer Seven also released the sound source of the new song ‘Mona Lisa’ through the NFT open market platform, NFT Mania. NFTs can only be purchased by one person and then resold through an auction. As a result, Seven’s music NFT has already been auctioned at the lowest price of 10 million won and recently closed. In addition, Ichi Band, which drew a lot of attention with ‘Beom Coming Down’ last year, turned it into an NFT and presented it through NFT Mania.
NFT has emerged as another channel for fans to communicate with content such as K-pop artists. Last month, MRC Data, a record sales research company, wrote in a report on the US music market in the first half of this year, “NFT has become a new source of revenue for artists.”
NFT is interpreted as a ‘non-fungible token.’ Based on blockchain technology, digital content is given a unique recognition value that cannot be duplicated. It can be interpreted as ‘only one content asset in the world’ that cannot be replaced by anything else.
Therefore, the judgment that the fandom can appeal more to K-pop fans is spreading. The entertainment industry is paying attention to the rarity of ‘the only one in the world. It can secure a profit through ‘content assets’ such as resale through auctions and that fans and stars can communicate.
In a keynote speech at the World Culture Industry Forum last month, SM Entertainment’s executive producer Lee Soo-man said, “In the era of blockchain, the content will be the third currency, as you can tell by NFT.” It is also a reference to the process of having another source of revenue by carrying various K-pop contents through new distribution channels.
