Cardano Spotlight #7: JPG Store
Overview:
JPG Store is the premiere NFT marketplace on the Cardano blockchain. It hosts all of the leading collections at present and is compatible with the vast majority of Cardano native wallets. Purchases can be made with Sol and Eth too as well as credit cards, so it is useful that you don’t need to have ADA in your wallet to make purchases. Particularly if you are mostly active on EVM chains or Solana. For those that are into blockchain based generative art, this is a great choice for browsing potential collections. The leading collections by trading volume at the time of writing are: The Ape Society; Book.io’s Gutenberg Bible; ShuffleBots Gen 1; Tappys by Tap Tools; and, Derp Birds. Other notable collections are Clay Nation, Space Buds and Pavia. JPG store has its own token — JPG — and this can get you discounts on trading fees on the platform. Taptools has a decent breakdown of its tokenomics. At present, the token is actively farmed on MinSwap. Many of the leading projects on the platform show the potential to earn yield or have some form of real world use case. This makes it a very interesting corner of Cardano DeFi.
Project potential:
JPG Store is well placed to remain the leading market place on Cardano moving forward. It’s token appears well situated to accrue value in the future, but the JPG token was only very recently launched, towards the end of 2023. This means that any investors should be very aware of its tokenomics and pay heed to any unlocks and governance votes that may come down the pipe in the future.
It is good to see that it has flexibility in tokens that can be used for payment when purchasing NFTs and that the platform does not just rely on payments to be made in ADA. Really, I don’t foresee JPG Store being unseated as the premiere NTF marketplace on Cardano any time soon. Simply because it is so well situated as the market leader. The fees are reasonable and a lot of trade takes place through the protocol. For new users, it is worth noting that you need to enable collateral in your wallet to ensure that you can use the site and purchase NFTs.
The site has staking facilities and a rewards dashboard to claim staking rewards. The collections statistics feature is useful and helps the user to see basic information such as floor price, percentage of the collection on sale, trading volume and the unique number of holders for each collection. The calendar feature is also useful and helps to keep on top of new collection drops. This is a good place to bookmark if there is an upcoming project that is on your watchlist. There is also a convenient studio feature for those that would like to create a collection but don’t know how to write code. This breaks down the barriers to collection creation and opens up the market place to artists with a lack of coding knowledge. The team page contains connections with the development team via their accounts on X. For further support, it is advised to open up a support ticket on their Discord server.
Utility NFT Projects:
It is worth noting that there are many utility projects available on Cardano that can be purchased through the store. For example, HungryCows are available at a very reasonable price and allow users to receive a boost when liquidity mining on MuesliSwap. The increase in rewards is quite significant for the cost of buying in. Other projects such as the Goofy Gophers Mining Club and Fuzzy Fellas allow users to collect rewards from their associated crypto mining projects. This is good for investors that want exposure to mining in their portfolio but lack the time and resources necessary to mine independently. Further, Shufflebots allow holders to earn rewards from the AdaShuffle casino project. All of these NFTs have utility to the holder and their value goes beyond the simple instrinsic value of art. This is something that I particularly look for in NFTs as an investment vehicle. It is important to me that I can earn rewards from any investment that I make.
Final thoughts:
Personally, I’m not the type of investor to simply buy and hold copious amounts of art. All of the pieces that I own on Cardano relate to the utility projects mentioned above. Whether purchasing artwork or a utility token, always do your own due diligence. This platform has a lot of sales going through it and the prices on some collections are extremely high. Always do your own research and ensure that any purchase you make fits your investment or collector thesis. Plenty of investors see NFT collecting as a hobby and are not utility-minded in the same way that I am. Just be aware that the tokens that you purchase may not retain value over time. Utility NFTs in particular are a relatively new investment model and NFTs are an extremely new asset class. Thus, if you decide to sell at a later date, you may not receive the same value as you initially spent on the token. Keep this in mind before making any purchase.
It is unlikely that NFTs are going anywhere. Cardano DeFi is a great place to be with respect to creating, buying or selling NFTs. Currently, JPG Store is the market leader in this space. This is the first place that you should look for listings if you are interested in making an NFT purchase on Cardano. There is plenty of room for growth before it reaches the sales potential of OpenSea or MagicEden but perhaps this is an encouraging sign given their relative amount of success on the blockchains that they serve. Flipr is an interesting competitor that helped projects such as Goofy Gophers with their launch. So it is possible that they may emerge as a contender in the future should they continue to innovate within the market space.
Find out more:
JPG Store on Discord;
JPG Store on Github;
JPG Store on Reddit;
JPG Store Help Center;
JPG Foundation Docs;
JPG Store on YouTube;
Dapp Central on JPG Token Launch;
Disclaimer: this is NOT financial advice. I’m a cow and I like to eat cereal. Any knowledge gained from this post is merely incidental and you are responsible for your own financial decisions. Make investments wisely and make sure to do your own research.
