You Can Now Buy NFTs at the ATM in NYC for the First Time
Buying a NFT is becoming as easy as buying snacks. At least in New York City. Neon, a marketplace and gallery built on the Solana blockchain, has launched an NFT ATM in New York City’s financial district, which it deems “the world’s first NFT vending machine.”
“Like this tweet if you have stopped by our #nftatm in Manhattan! Retweet if you want to check out the coolest NFT experience in the world,” Neon tweeted Feb. 23.
The NFT vending machine — located at 29 John St in Manhattan — is open 24 hours a day and allows collectors to buy Solana NFTs with fiat currency. It accepts USD credit and debit cards then dispenses a box with a unique code inside it for the chosen NFT, which is easily redeemable on the Neon platform.
Jordan Birnholtz, Neon CMO and co-founder, told GOBankingRates that he came up with the vending machine idea with the help of one of his summer interns, Drew Levine, in the fall of 2021.
“My thought was that there is literally no simpler way to buy something than a vending machine. We built it because it shows how powerful and easy it can be to support digital artists, and to demystify the process of getting an NFT,” Birnholtz said.
“We started with two projects that we commissioned because we wanted to work out any technical problems or challenges before asking other artists to contribute their work,” he added.
Right now, two different kinds of NFTs are for sale: Party Pigeons, a digital art collection created by the artist Typfy for Neon, and Project Color, a randomly selected color you can buy, sell and trade to create a collage, Birnholtz explained.
“You can see some examples of them on our website or in the art installed on the walls of the vending space. Party Pigeons were inspired by music festival culture and, therefore, depict a collection of very tired but very happy pigeons,” he said.
Neon is offering Colors for $5.99 and Party Pigeons for $420.69, he said.
Asked whether Neon would expand into other cities, he said that they plan to this summer.
“Having ironed out the technical challenges in dispensing and redeeming NFTs, we’re inviting artists and creators to feature their NFTs in our machines. One of our goals for building the vending machines is to inspire artists to sell on Neon, in our machines and on our website, and most of the artists on our waitlist have come from seeing the NYC location,” he said.
He added that Neon started with fiat because “our mission is unique, to bring digital art and collecting to the largest possible audience. We will accept crypto later this year and are building that now.”
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