In his current alliance with Canadian rapper The Weeknd, hip-hop artist Post Malone has been seen buying NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) via the fintech company MoonPay.
Malone bought two Bored Apes for a combined 160 Ether (ETH) ($682,000) in a TikTok video which has amassed more than five million views.
Coin Rivet spoke with Ivan Soto-Wright, the CEO of a MoonPay – a fintech start-up focused on providing cryptocurrency payments infrastructure.
He explained that what made MoonPay different from other platforms, was the way it was “helping the crypto economy rapidly develop”.
“We’re allowing organisations who use our payments infrastructure to compress months or years of regulatory and operational preparation to just a few days,” he said.
“While the technology is great on its own – users can go directly to our webpage and buy and sell crypto – what differentiates MoonPay is the fact that this tech is enabling emerging wallets, exchanges, DeFi platforms, and NFT marketplaces to hit the ground running so they can focus entirely on core business rather than infrastructure.”
Talking about the target audience, Soto-Wright said that MoonPay’s users span the whole spectrum from crypto newbie to crypto native.
“Right now we’re really focussed on onboarding the next billion users to crypto, and that means targeting people who have otherwise turned away from high barriers to entry,” he added.
“We want to involve everyone who thinks crypto is complicated. And the way we’re doing that? By simplifying crypto.”
MoonPay’s CEO also mentioned that he sees NFTs as the future.
“There’s no limit to the potential they have to disrupt everything from the wine industry to real estate,” he said.
“Currently the focus is on digital art, and leveraging the excitement around this space to bring people into the crypto economy.”
The turning point for crypto
He officially confirmed that MoonPay has recently done a lot of work with Bored Ape Yacht Club – a remarkable digital collection that it has attrected a few notable figures, including Jimmy Fallon and Post Malone.
Soto-Wright added that “this is a turning point for crypto”.
“All the diehards and tech natives are already on board, but now we have to set our sights on everyone else,” he said.
“The next stage in achieving mass adoption is to make crypto feel natural – to improve the end-user experience as much as possible. If we can do that, then we’ll get a heck of a lot more people introduced to the crypto economy.”
