LG Electronics Launches NFT Platform That Lets Users Buy and Sell Digital Artwork – TechCrunch

LG Electronics said today it has released its non-fungible token (NFT) platform LG Art Lab, which allows users to discover, buy, sell and trade NFTs on LG smart TVs.

The announcement comes about eight months after LG Electronics said at its press conference that it plans to incorporate NFT capabilities into its smart TVs. The platform is now only available in the US for those with LG TVs running webOS 5.0 or later and is accessible directly from the home screen.

LG Electronics partnered with the Hedera network to offer an app that enables users to purchase NFTs via Wallypto, LG’s crypto wallet for smartphones.

“Wallypto, built on Hedera, has been in development since September 2021,” Chris Jo, senior vice president, head of platform business at LG Electronics’ home entertainment company, told TechCrunch. “The beta version of the wallet launched this week in August.”

The collaboration between Hedera and LG Electronics was initiated in 2020 when LG joined the Hedera governing council which includes Google, IBM, Deutsche Telekom and the Indian Institute of Technology, among others.

“While many people have heard of NFTs and want to participate in the growing ecosystem, it can be overly complicated and difficult to get started,” said Jo. “LG Art Lab is designed to allow millions of users in the US to easily access and display NFTs, without having to interact with code or directly with a blockchain itself.”

The NFT platform has a Drops feature that profiles artists and shows their new artwork previews. Its real-time Live Drops feature provides alerts to help users acquire a dropped NFT to ensure they don’t miss an opportunity.

Image credit: LG Electronics/ Courtesy of Barry X Ball Studio, Inc.

Jo also said that Hedera allows users to trade for less than $0.0001 cents per transaction (without high gas fees or hidden costs), meaning there are no hidden costs associated with the NFT platform.

“The Hedera network uses much less energy than any other public ledger, making it the ideal choice for sustainability initiatives and meaning it can address the ESG of modern businesses and investors,” explained Jo. Users can buy, sell and display NFTs on the Hedera network without worrying about the high energy consumption associated with other public networks, he said, adding that Hedera guarantees a low, predictable fee for users, unlike many other decentralized network.

South Korea’s major IT and entertainment companies are jumping into the NFT (non-fungible token) industry. In January, LG’s rival Samsung unveiled its new smart TV-based NFT marketing plan. Samsung said it will add NFT features to Samsung TVs such as MICRO LED and Neo QLED.