Flyfish Club founder and CEO David Rodolitz, who claims to be opening the world's first NFT restaurant, explained on "Varney & Co." on Tuesday how his "innovative" establishment will operate.
Rodolitz said in order to gain access to his restaurant, which is set to open in an undisclosed location in New York City sometime next year, one must purchase cryptocurrency and then use the Ethereum to buy the Flyfish Club NFT [non-fungible tokens].
According to the company website, the Flyfish Club "is the world's first member's only private dining club" where membership is purchased on the blockchain as an NFT and owned by the token-holder to be able to frequent the restaurant.
Recently, there has been massive growth in NFT sales. The total value of all NFT sales that took place in 2021 was $23 billion compared to less than $100 million in 2020, according to data published by DappRadar and noted by Larry Cheng, managing partner at Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth equity firm.
NFTs, which are fueling a frenzy among investors and artists looking to cash in on the market that has ballooned, are digital collectibles that are irreplaceable assets, which can be bought or traded like any other piece of property.
However, unlike a tangible asset, buying an NFT is like owning an encrypted JPEG that can be downloaded on your computer. Most NFTs exist on the Ethereum blockchain – the second-largest cryptocurrency platform behind Bitcoin.
The once-niche marketplace for NFTs has been around since 2017 and was largely under the public radar because of the jargon of blockchain, which is a digital ledger of irreversible transactions.
Now, however, investors and crypto-fanatics are not only taking notice, they are rushing to spend billions in digital tokens.
Rodolitz argued that the Flyfish Club NFT "is just a remarkable innovation."
"It changes, the typical membership model, which is reoccurring fees and essentially just an ongoing expense when you go to a country club or a social club," he continued.
"Our NFTs allow you to actually own your membership, so it changes a membership into an asset, which you can sell, you can use, you can transfer, you could gift or you could lease if you’re not in town and won’t be available to use it over the time period."
SOURCE: Fox Business
IMAGE SOURCE: PixabayHe told host Stuart Varney he plans on opening in 2023 because "it will take a bit of time to build out the space and find an iconic location that we feel like is special enough for this project."
