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Crypto’s Night at the Grammys

From Binance and OneOf to a side of PFP NFTs, a crypto presence was felt during the music industry’s marquee event.

“We’re in Las Vegas,” Trevor Noah, comedian and host of the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, said Sunday night during the show’s opening remarks. “It’s like if crypto was a city.”

The crypto joke (one of two by Noah on the night) was far from the sector’s only cameo. From sponsored events and afterparties to non-fungible token (NFT) meetups, the space once again found itself intertwined with mainstream entertainment.

Two Grammy partnerships in particular dominated the weekend’s festivities, one with crypto exchange Binance and the other with OneOf, a music non-fungible token platform on the Tezos blockchain.

OneOf’s prominence on the weekend came as part of a three-year partnership the platform signed with the Recording Academy back in November. The deal will lead to various NFT sales from high-profile artists and award winners, many of which, like Doja Cat and H.E.R., have already released collections on the platform.

Binance kept a lower profile throughout the weekend (an official afterparty aside) but a spokesperson teased “larger partnership plans” to be announced later.

For all the silliness NFTs bring to events like the Grammys, the business behind them is anything but.

Record labels and talent agencies are scrambling to get their clients involved in the increasingly popular and mainstream form of digital assets. Many of them are experimenting with the tech as they go.


“People often talk about crypto as a new asset class,” a lawyer who represents the popular NFT project Doodles told CoinDesk at the Grammys. “NFTs are entertainment’s newest asset class.”

Before the night of the event, there was no shortage of artists eager to talk about upcoming NFT releases. Rapper Gerald Gillum, better known by his stage name G-Eazy, was one of them. He’s announcing his debut collection with OneOf later this month.

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