Alchemy, the start-up powering Adobes NFT effort, sees valuation skyrocket as digital collectibles go mainstream
Summary
Those behind-the-scenes building blocks have been used to create Dapper Labs, the maker of CryptoKitties, NBA Top Shot, video game Axie Infinity and OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace. Nonfungible tokens, also called NFTs, represent ownership of a virtual item such as a piece of digital artwork or a sports trading card. Its investors liken Alchemy to Amazon Web Services, which sits between the internet and companies like Netflix and Uber that use AWS to host their websites. "The biggest misconception about blockchains is that they are just about money, cryptocurrencies, or finance," said Ali Yahya, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who led the funding round. The former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, Coinbase and PayPal founder Peter Thiel are also backers, and so is the chairman of Alphabet, John Hennessy.