NFT startup Glass suspends development year after $5m funding

A video platform startup, Glass Protocol, has suspended its development, citing a lack of “sustainable demand for video NFTs.”

Glass Protocol, a video platform allowing creators to monetize their videos with non-fungible tokens (NFTs), won’t get any new updates as the startup’s founders don’t see any “sustainable demand for video NFTs.”

Glass co-founders Sam Sends and Varun Iyer wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that they’re suspending the development of the startup. They added that the website, protocol, and NFTs “will remain operational and are stored safely.” Sends added the team is now exploring “different pivots” within the crypto space without going into details.

Although the main reason behind the move remains unclear, Sends pointed out that the project experimented with different purchase models and user experiences. However, the team has concluded that “there is not sustainable demand for video NFTs,” he said.

We’ve decided to end active development of Glass.

— varun (@varuuniyer) September 8, 2023

Founded in 2021, the Los Angeles-based NFT startup was trying to build a web3 ecosystem where creators and communities could directly engage with one another using blockchain technology.

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The announcement comes almost a year after Glass raised $5 million in a funding round co-led by TCG Crypto and 1kx. As per Axios, Glass succeeded to generate around $1 million in revenue for its creators in 2021. The firm also managed to gain about $100,000 in revenue from NFT sales and planned to work with at least 10,000 creators. At that time, the platform had over 100 creators and transitioned its interface from Ethereum to Solana.

In the meantime, the NFT market is witnessing a significant surge after taking a downward curve. By the end of August, the number of transactions surpassed the 275,000 mark, with the average value of a sale hovering around $51. However, the total amount of wash trades increased with the market activity. As of Aug. 31, the NFT wash volume reached $4.5 million in more than 28,200 wash transactions, according to data from CryptoSlam.

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