Samsung Taps Nifty Gateway to Create Smart TV NFT Platform

While many startups are building bespoke displays for NFTs, Samsung is taking a different approach: adding NFT functionality to its smart TV sets, potentially opening up NFT collecting to a much wider audience.

And today, the tech firm announced the NFT industry partner that is bringing its smart TV interface to life. It’s Nifty Gateway, the Ethereum-centric marketplace that brothers Griffin and Duncan Cock Foster founded in 2018, and was acquired by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini in 2019.

Nifty Gateway worked alongside Samsung to develop an NFT viewing, buying, and trading experience optimized for televisions. It taps into Nifty Gateway’s custodial wallet system, in which the platform secures users’ collectibles rather than requiring them to hold them in an external wallet. It also lets users purchase NFTs with a credit or debit card, or cryptocurrency.

“Through our partnership with Samsung, one of the global leaders of electronics, together we will expose millions of mainstream users to NFTs,” Griffin Cock Foster told Decrypt. “Last year, NFTs had a breakthrough moment specifically for the art industry. Creators and collectors were able to see the power of this technology.”

“This year, we hope to see continued growth from mainstream consumers by providing for the first time ever a seamless way to buy and collect NFTs,” he continued. “We couldn’t be more excited to have a partner such as Samsung align to our mission.”

Nifty Gateway and Samsung

The Nifty Gateway NFT platform will be integrated within Samsung’s new 2022 premium TV lines, including its QLED and Neo QLED sets, while owners of Samsung’s The Frame and Micro LED sets can download a Nifty Gateway app to gain access.

Samsung first announced plans to integrate NFT functionality within its new TVs at the CES trade show in January.

Users will be able to view all artwork on the Nifty Gateway platform, whether it’s from one of Nifty’s own curated collections—including notable artists like Beeple, Pak, and XCOPY—or NFTs that have been aggregated from other marketplaces. Last fall, the platform began expanding beyond its own curated drops to offer customers a wider array of NFT collectibles.

The platform has already facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of NFT trading volume, having hit the $300 million mark in May 2021 and hosting some significant drops since then.

For example, a December drop by digital artist Pak generated nearly $92 million worth of primary sales. Just last week, an XCOPY open edition drop yielded $23 million in trading within just 10 minutes.

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