NFT Platform Announced By ZK International's XSigma: What Investors Should Know

One of the hottest stories of 2021 has been the rise of NFTs. Also known as non-fungible-tokens, NFTs are the latest growth area of the cryptocurrency market. One publicly traded company announced a new platform for NFTs to push its cryptocurrency growth objective.

What Happened: XSigma, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ZK International Group Co. Ltd ZKIN, announced plans to launch a NFT platform. The platform will use the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains.

The NFT platform from xSigma will allow users to buy and sell NFTs and also the ability to create their own custom NFTs in a few clicks, according to the company. XSigma lists the NFT market size as $1.3 billion in 2021. The platform is expected to launch in the third quarter of 2021.

See also: What is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)?
“We are pleased to announce that we are moving quickly into the next boom of monetizing of digital assets of the innovative industry known as non-fungible tokens,” xSigma Chairman Jiancong Huang said.

XSigma plans to attract various artists and talents in exclusive deals for the NFT platform. This move would be similar to the company’s partnership with NBA Champion Dwight Howard, who is endorsing the DeFi project from the company.

Howard serves as a partner on the DeFi project and will help advertise for xSigma. The company said at the time the deal with Howard was the first project of its kind for global sports influencers.

Related Link: Where Do You See NFTs At In 10 Years?

Why It’s Important: The NFT platform is the fourth project in xSigma’s ecosystem of blockchain products to be launched in 2021, including a DeFi project in February that reached $100 million in total value locked in the first week.

XSigma shared plans last week to launch a second stablecoin in April, a gas cashback program in April 2021 and build an exchange for its users.

Back in February, xSigma acquired a proprietary crypto trading platform that it will brand as xSigma trading. The platform will offer crypto trading, crypto lending and crypto options. The platform is expected to launch in the second quarter of 2021, according to the company. The xSgima trading platform will not serve U.S. customers as it does not hold a license in the country.

ZK International launched the xSigma segment in 2018 after years of being an engineering and manufacturing company for stainless steel and carbon steel pipe products for the water and gas pipeline systems.

XSigma's team includes former engineers from Facebook, Inc. FB, Alphabet Inc's GOOG/GOOGL Google, Ripple and Amazon.com AMZN.

ZKIN Price Action: Shares of ZK International are up 20% to $7.65 on Monday.

Disclosure: Author is long shares ZKIN.

Related Link: Get daily trading ideas from Benzinga's Power Hour on YouTube.

(Photo by Tianyi Ma on Unsplash)