Decrypt Media’s New NFT Production Studio Is Generating 6-Figure Revenues

Decrypt Studios, the blockchain-centric production house launched by Decrypt Media, has traded almost 30 nonfungible tokens since its soft launch in July. In total, the venture has generated more than six figures in revenue, said founder Alanna Roazzi-Laforet, who also serves as the chief revenue officer and publisher of Decrypt Media. As the hype in NFTs, Web3 and cryptomedia swells, publishers and brands are searching for more natural ways to incorporate these tactics into their businesses—and ideally, make money—over the year ahead. But the space is convoluted at best, especially for newcomers. Decrypt Studios offers two services: first, it helps artists and other influential creatives mint NFTs from scratch, then manages the process of marketing, selling and finalizing the transaction of the digital asset. Second, it creates commercial and artistic installations in the metaverse for clients, a service that generally requires at least three months of construction, Roazzi-Laforet said. It plans to debut its first such installation sometime in Q1, but wouldn't share the name of the client or value of the transaction. Decrypt Studios has 25 total clients, 10 of whom have traded an NFT. The average price of the traded NFTs is $15,000, though that excludes at least one NFT that was traded for more than seven figures. The studio earns a 20% commission on for-profit sales and a 10% commission on non-profit sales. The four-person company is not yet profitable, but Roazzi-Laforet said it aims to generate between 10% and 15% of Decrypt Media’s total revenue by the end of the year. “Creating NFTs is simple, but if you look at the number of sales compared to the number of bids on a platform like OpenSea, you’ll see it’s very limited,” Roazzi-Laforet told Adweek. “There are thousands of images being auctioned, but only a fraction of them have a bid. So marketing and finding buyers is very important.” Crypto Publisher Decrypt Launches Token Cryptocurrency for NFTs The venture represents a new line of revenue for Decrypt Media, a title owned by blockchain incubator ConsenSys Mesh. The publisher has a track record of experimenting with cryptomedia-based business models, such as minting a proprietary token to reward reader engagement and launching its own decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. Decrypt Studios' function as a marketing vehicle for select NFTs is a novel occurrence in the cryptomedia world, which prides itself on decentralization and community decision-making, said Charles Damga, the director of creator relations at NFT marketplace Foundation. The concept of marketing, in general, is still relatively new to the nascent crypto economy, where collectors and artists often communicate in chat rooms on Discord or Telegram—or via direct message on Twitter and Instagram. How Decrypt Studios markets NFTs Decrypt Studios markets its NFTs in a number of ways, most of which rely on its relationships with collectors in the cryptomedia ecosystem and the Decrypt Media audience. Its two primary ways of promoting the digital artworks are through socializing with crypto whales, or prominent collectors and by engaging with the artists’ social media fanbases, Roazzi-Laforet said. When working with crypto whales, Decrypt Studios communicates through Twitter and Discord, offering investors a sneak peek at an NFT if the piece matches their taste. On social media, Decrypt Studios will tag themselves in a post promoting the NFT and respond to inquiries over direct message. If fans or potential buyers are unfamiliar with the purchasing process, Decrypt Studios will walk them through the necessary steps. Decrypt Studios also runs house ads for certain NFTs on the Decrypt Media website and will occasionally promote the artwork through internal Slack channels, Roazzi-Laforet said. The production studio conducts trades primarily on the OpenSea and Monegraph platforms, with Palm as its Layer 2 solution. A potential resource for other publishers Decrypt has a unique adjacency to the cryptomedia world, but publishers such as Time, The New York Times, Quartz and others have all minted and sold NFTs in the last year. Decrypt Studios has not worked with any publishers yet but welcomes the possibility, pointing to the possible synergies of such a transaction. Publishers’ forays into the NFT market offer a new, potentially lucrative way for them to monetize their content, says Tim Thompson, a managing director at FTI Consulting. They could outsource the work of ideating, minting and selling their NFTs to a third-party like Decrypt Studios, minimizing the amount of resources they would need to dedicate to the effort. Publishers Continue to Experiment With NFTs, Signaling Their Potential Staying Power Working with an entity like Decrypt Studios would mean losing a percentage of the revenue and fragmenting their relationship with the end consumer, but publishers routinely make such trade-offs in exchange for convenient digital services, Thompson said. “They’re another middleman in the digital space for some of the more legacy publishing brands, but publishers are used to using services for digital fulfillment,” Thompson said. “It's another product or service that they could potentially leverage to drive revenue.”