Men’s lifestyle magazine Maxim is launching an NFT marketplace MaximNFT.com, with the help of blockchain R&D lab xSigma Corporation – a subsidiary of Nasdaq listed company ZK International.
Maxim Enters the NFT Space
News of the partnership was unveiled in a press release from ZK International, the parent company of xSigma. The xSigma team will own and operate the MaximNFT marketplace, to which Maxim will use its brand and wide audience to promote and attract users. Maxim is a leading men’s magazine of over 25 years, reaching over 10 million men across 75 countries every month. Their covers have featured numerous celebrities including Megan Fox, Shakira, Beyonce, and more.
The MaximNFT platform will allow users to easily buy, sell, and create their own NFTs. NFT’s– short for “Non-fungible-tokens”– are unique digital property with which official ownership is certified using blockchain technology. MaximNFT features support for NFTs across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Polkadot, and Binance-Smart Chain.
Interestingly, the platform reportedly includes a new NFT trading feature known as “NFT tokenization”. Using this feature, users can break down a single NFT into multiple parts, and trade each as an individual piece. This could alter the longstanding notion that all NFTs are completely unique digital assets, and turn them into something of a digital currency on Maxim’s marketplace.
As a blockchain R&D lab, xSigma is in the business of developing such technologies. They produce a variety of products and applications for DeFi, stablecoins, and NFTs, supported by a team that includes former Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Ripple engineers.
MaximNFT will also be the exclusive host of Maxim’s own NFT suite, as well as digital assets based on popular brands, athletes, and celebrities. The specifics of the suite are yet to be announced.
Explosive NFT Growth in 2021
The NFT space has seen remarkable growth in popularity this year, with much of it concentrated in the last two months alone. Data from Dappradar shows transaction volume reaching $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021. In fact, as much as $896 million in NFT sales volume was observed last month alone.
Maxim’s creation of an NFT marketplace is doubtlessly intended to capitalize on the industry’s rapid growth. Their platform will focus on providing sports, celebrity, and gaming-themed collectibles to the community– especially gaming, an industry they expect to become deeply embedded with NFT technology in the future.
