Decrypt Studios is selling brands and creators on producing NFTs and metaverse presences without worrying about the technical legwork

By Kayleigh Barber

Decrypt Media is looking to capitalize on its knowledge of the blockchain, Web 3.0 and the metaverse through a new production studio business, Decrypt Studios, that aims to provide creators and brands with the means to mint their own NFTs and produce other blockchain-related products.

At the end of October, the media arm of the blockchain investment company ConsenSys Mesh quietly launched its new production house, but unlike other studios, Decrypt Studios’ focus is solely on producing projects using blockchain and Web3 technology for both brands and individual creators, ranging from NFT drops to metaverse activations. Web3, or Web 3.0, is being heralded by technologists as the “next phase” of the internet and is intended to allow users to interact more freely with each other and without any central authorities controlling the platforms or websites that they use.

Decrypt Studios currently consists of four full-time staffers and is set up to take on all of the technical lift of minting and selling NFTs — which includes creating smart contracts for sales, devising revenue shares, and managing gas fees — and building presences in the metaverse for creators and brands.

“Minting an NFT is not for the faint of heart. You have to understand things that are endemic to the crypto world that a lot of the folks coming into [Web 3.0] don’t understand yet,” said Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, CRO and publisher at Decrypt Media and recently appointed head of Decrypt Studios. “There’s so many open questions in the space and the answers keep changing. So we help demystify all of that.”

Decrypt derives revenue from the studio by receiving a share of earnings on NFT sales and payment for metaverse installations. Right now, Decrypt earns on average about 20% of for-profit NFT sales and 10% of non-profit NFT sales as part of the revenue-share model.

The studio’s first two clients were strictly NFT partnerships, including an NFT collection that was created with philosopher and Princeton University professor Peter Singer. His collection was part of a non-profit campaign that combines NFT assets with real-world experiences. For example, one of the four items in the collection was a package consisting of an NFT version of his paper “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” as well as a 30-minute Zoom call with him. The proceeds of the campaign’s auction, which ended on Dec. 9, will be donated to Singer’s co-founded charity organization The Life You Save.

NFTs will not be the focus going forward, however, according to Roazzi-Laforet. A significant part of the business, she expects, will be brands paying for the crypto publisher’s assistance in building permanent presences in the metaverse — a.k.a. virtual “brick-and-mortar” stores or venues that live on indefinitely online.

So far, Decrypt Studios claims to have three brand clients in the process of finalizing metaverse deals though Roazzi-Laforet declined to name the companies her team is in talks with, nor share the size of the deals. She added that with the growth of the metaverse business, she anticipates the Studios business will …read more

Source:: Digiday