Customer relations software company Salesforce is launching a cloud-based service for the sale and creation of NFTs, despite flagging sales for the digital tokens.
As Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (June 8), Salesforce’s service is geared toward consumer brands that want to sell non-fungible tokens for things like admission to events instead of minting them for their artistic or trading value.
“The art should look great. But that’s not really the point,” Adam Caplan, who oversees emerging technology at Salesforce, told Bloomberg.
See also: Scammers Used Twitter’s Crypto Community to Steal Information
NFTs are tradeable digital collectibles employing the same technology as cryptocurrencies to prove ownership. The tokens are not without their share of controversy. High-profile scams and thefts have also plagued the industry.
For example, reports emerged last month that scammers had begun impersonating reporters, crypto apps and several non-fungible token (NFT) projects since March on Twitter to steal users’ virtual currency, usernames and passwords.
The scam allegedly involved thieves impersonating members of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collective, along with the Okay Bears NFT community, which has upward of 150,000 followers on Twitter.
And in April, hackers took over the BAYC Instagram account and Discord server, sending an unofficial link to followers to “mint” NFTs, allowing them to steal about 54 NFTs worth a total of $13 million.
Read more: Hackers Swipe Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs
Salesforce says it recognizes that risk and will provide a more secure service for its NFT customers, letting them host sales on their sites to emphasize the tokens’ legitimacy. Salesforce, meanwhile, would handle back-end security, authentication and writing of contracts, Caplan said in a press briefing.
Bloomberg said Salesforce would launch the service for a select group of customers, although it plans a wider rollout for October.
NFT trading activity has fallen about 90% from its peak in September of 2021, the Bloomberg report noted, although investors and collectors still spent more than $2 billion on the tokens in May. Caplan said Salesforce customers value NFTs as a way to drive engagement more than their value as an asset.
