A venture-backed crypto startup, Glass, is currently falling into the ongoing bear market. The startup, which sought to monetize NFT videos, has announced through its founders, Varun Iyer, and Sam Sands, that it would move away as the market can no longer sustain its growth.
With the onset of a bear market that left even the most stalwart crypto titans reeling, Glass found itself unable to withstand the pressures of plummeting valuations and dwindling investor confidence.
An in-depth look at the Glass Startup
Glass is a crypto startup developed to monetize NFT Videos. It was co-founded by the Chicago University Alums Iyer and Sand in 2021. The company was founded hoping to open up its platform to all content creators to expand their creator partnerships. The Company made more than $1 million in 2022 from content creators on their platform.
Glass also generated $ 100,000 in revenue from revenue splits from the creators’ NFTs. Some known artists who have worked with the company include Kygo and Timbaland.
According to a partner at TCG Crypto in 2022, the startup intended to create a platform where the creators would directly relate with their fans, which is not the case on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
The founders previously shifted Glass from the Solana blockchain to the Ethereum Blockchain, which Iyer said would be cheaper and faster. The startup worked with creators, especially in their music videos. It was also seeking to extend its services to bloggers who tend to have more commitment and consistency to their content, thus loyal video communities.
The platform also integrated creator profiles where fans could see how much investments they made had grown and the videos they paid for. It also contained a built-in secondary marketplace where users could buy and sell NFTs to view videos on Glass in the same interface.
The announcement to end development
The co-founders posted on their X page (formerly Twitter) that they had come to the conclusion that the market demand for NFT videos was not enough to sustain the growth of Glass and thus had decided to end the development of the platform’s protocol.
The startup ran for two years after its launch in November 2021. Sands said in a podcast by Airwave 2021 that the company intended to ensure every person gains from the technology in the NFT craze. He added that sharing what you owned and cared about was a new way that was still untapped in the NFT market.
The startup is the latest victim of the bear market that hit the crypto trading market, particularly the NFT market. Trading volumes have decreased for the NFT sector, even for the famous Bored Apes; this is even worse for projects that never really took off, such as Glass. The startup intended to give content creators a space to create personalized videos by minting and selling their NFTs to their fans, allowing them to earn even more royalties than they make on YouTube.
The co-founders saw an opportunity in blockchain technology where they could ensure sustainability and transparency by storing data in a decentralized manner. Previously, only platforms such as TiTok and Youtube paid content creators based on the number of views they attracted.
On the other hand, Glass allowed their fans to determine the monetary value of the videos based on quality. Users could also buy the videos as NFTs to unlock them or collect free-to-watch videos to add to their collections.
The founders also said that the NFTs created on Glass would continue existing on the protocol and website; however, they added that the company would no longer be working on the protocol, which would harm future development.
In September, the company raised $5 million last year from 1KX and TCG crypto, a crypto investment fund in the Chernin group. It is still unclear whether the protocol has run out or if any venture capital has left.
Glass’s fall serves as a sobering reminder to investors and entrepreneurs alike about the unpredictable nature of disruptive technologies in a market still in its formative years.
