Phone Maker Nothing to Airdrop NFTs to Customers

The last week has certainly been full of announcements of NFTs being used within the mobile phone sector. First, it was HTC announcing that its upcoming phone would feature an NFT wallet, along with web3 capabilities. 

Now, we have Nothing, a newer phone maker, announcing that it will be airdropping NFTs to the buyers of its first phone. This is being done as a collaboration between Nothing and Polygon, which is a popular scaling solution to Ethereum, and will also see Polygon-based technology be infused into the upcoming Nothing phone (1). 

NFTs Calling 

As per the official announcement made by Nothing on Twitter, the first set of NFTs to be distributed will be called Black Dot NFTs. These are to be given to all those who contributed to the crowdfunding of the company’s first phone.

This can be done by visiting the official Nothing site and signing up for the airdrops, which are to hold from July 7, 2022, to August 13, 2022. Those who preordered the Nothing phone (1) can also enjoy both this airdrop and the ones to come in the future. 

At the end of the Twitter thread was a note saying ‘introducing the Black Dot NFT’ along with the image of a black dot in a transparent cube. These NFTs are, however, not just for aesthetic value as they will also grant their holders access to products and events. 

But as Polygon Vice President of Growth Arjun Kalsy said in an interview with Decrypt, the company has many more plans with Nothing. Some of these will include installing Polygon’s payment system on the Nothing phones and its platform in general. According to Kalsy, this is a way to spread NFT and web3 adoption. 

“How do we get even closer to the user? The largest distribution platform in the world is the mobile phone. Basically, the timing was right that now we can take this technology to the masses,” he says.

These efforts, however, are not for pushing web3 adoption for the sake of it. Instead, he believes that decentralized technology can put power and privacy back into the hands of consumers. 

“If you look at any Android or Apple phone, you log in with either a Google ID or an Apple ID, and to an extent, Apple or Google owns the customer, right? That is where the value comes from. In a decentralized world, we need to help the user take back control,” Kalsy says.

Coming to a Phone Near You 

As Kalsy himself explained, phones are one of the biggest ‘distribution channels’ that exist in the world today and if NFTs can find a solid place in them, the sky is the limit. For starters, while some people might be reluctant to embrace a technology on its own, it will be seen as more palpable if coming from the maker of their phone. 

With the influx of phone makers embracing NFTs these says, this seems like a likely outcome.