Associated Press to Launch Polygon-Based Photography NFT Platform

The Associated Press (AP) is launching a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace where collectors will be able to purchase tokenized photos from the global news platform.

The initial NFT series will include photos taken by Associated Press photographers on topics such as space, climate and war. According to the marketplace’s website, the NFTs will be released starting Jan. 31, over a period of several weeks and at various prices.

These photos will be minted as NFTs on Polygon, the Ethereum second-layer scaling network. The platform will support secondary transactions using debit or credit cards, as well as payments in Ethereum.

The marketplace is being built by Xooa, a blockchain infrastructure platform that specializes in “creating a white-label NFT marketplace for brands and IP owners.”

Zach Danker-Feldman, head of marketing at Xooa, said the partnership will serve as a "powerful connection between the virtual and real worlds".

Crypto wallet provider Metamask is also supported, with possible future partnerships with Fortmatic, Binance and Coinbase. Other upcoming features will include "withdrawals to other markets," "social media features," "new content concepts," and "off-chain earnings" for NFT holders.

Every two weeks there will be a "Pulitzer Drop," which will include Pulitzer Prize-winning photos. Each NFT will contain detailed metadata of the photo, such as time, date, location, equipment and technical settings.

According to a statement from The Associated Press, proceeds from the NFT sale will be repurposed to fund AP journalism. The Associated Press is a 175-year-old nonprofit news cooperative headquartered in New York City. Although the platform will allow secondary market sales, it will charge fees of up to 10%.

This is not the news agency’s first foray into blockchain technology. In October 2021, the Associated Press partnered with Chainlink Labs to ensure that any data from members of its US newspapers and broadcasters will be cryptographically authenticated.

In 2020, the Associated Press published the results of the presidential election using the Ethereum and EOS blockchains. Additionally, in 2018, the company partnered with blockchain-based journalism startup Civil to facilitate its plans to track content usage and protect intellectual property.

The Associated Press is not the only news organization interested in the potential use of blockchain in the news industry. In June 2021, CNN launched its NFT project "Vault by CNN: Moments That Changed Us". The series tokenizes a series of historic "news moments" from the news company's 41-year history.

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