MG Motor India to launch collection of NFTs

The company will commence the sale of NFTs on 1,111 digital pieces of its art, including GIFs and static images, on December 28. These will be categorised in four segments: collectibles drawing on the Morris Garages heritage, community and diversity, car-as-a platform and collaborative art.

NFTs are a type of crypto asset in which each token is unique. It can be used as a digital certificate of authenticity for any asset, digital or physical, such as one-of-a-kind work of art or an antique.

MG Motor India expects the launch of the NFTs to help boost the brand’s fan base.

“There is a lot of potential for collaborative art. NFTs will be a big boon for artists as well as enthusiasts interested in owning pieces of digital art. It will help expand the fan base of the brand, by allowing more and more consumers to own a piece of MG,” chief commercial officer Gaurav Gupta told ET.

The company will enter the NFT space with KoineArth’s NgageN platform. In compliance with government regulations, transactions will not be made in cryptocurrencies, but in Indian rupees. MG Motor India will use the proceeds from the maiden auction to support the education of girls under its MG Sewa programme.

Several brands including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser, Burger King and McDonald’s have launched exclusive NFT series recently to keep pace with growing consumer interest in digital collectibles.

In India, celebrities from Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, actor Rajnikanth and cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, among others, have launched NFTs to resounding response from fans and enthusiasts. In fact, Bachchan’s collection of NFTs — it includes Madhushala (a collection of his father’s poem, recorded in the actor’s voice) NFT, The Lootbox NFT and Iconic Vintage Posters NFT — went under the hammer for $966,000 (Rs 7.18 crore), the highest ever in India.

Former cricketer Gavaskar launched his NFT collection in October featuring landmark moments of his career. These included Gavaskar becoming the first player to score 10,000 runs, when he scored 774 runs in a single test series and held the record of highest number (34) of test centuries for many years. The collection was designed and curated by London-based NFT specialist nftie.