Sydney shopping mall gets non-fungible this Christmas with an NFTree

The Galaries shopping mall in Sydney is embracing non-traditional Christmas decorations, while supporting local digital artists and likely bamboozling a few shoppers while it’s at it.

This year, Vicinity Centres, which runs The Galaries, will be forgoing the traditional pine for a futuristic NFTree.

The five-metre, super-modern tree will house eight digital artworks available for purchase as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The NFT: Illuminated exhibition will run from November 16, 2021 to January 5, 2022.

Screens on the tree will display work from local artists, while shoppers will have the opportunity to purchase any of the pieces, becoming NFT collectors themselves

A non-fungible token is essentially a unit of data stored on the blockchain.

While a fungible token could be a unit of cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for something of the same value, a non-fungible token is more akin to a piece of art or collectors item. They are one-of-a-kind assets with fluctuating value that can change — usually increasing — fast.

An NFT could be rare digital items in a video game, a piece of music or a piece of animated artwork, for example.

In March this year, artist Beeple made history when his work, The First 500 Days, sold at auction at Christies for $88.6 million. A single pixel has also been sold for $1.3 million.

In Australia, blockchain-focused gaming startup Immutable raised $82 million in September, for its tech allowing for in-game trading of NFTs.

In this case, the tokens are the digital artworks displayed on the NFTree.

“The NFTree is not only spectacular to look at, but also supports and celebrates emerging Australian artists and creators, showcasing their work to audiences during the busiest shopping period of the year,” Corrine Barchanowicz, Vicinity Centres’ head of marketing, brand and experience, said in a statement.