Photo: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / SPENCER PLATT
On February 10, the exchange submitted an application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to operate an online marketplace for various digital items.
“Provision of an online marketplace for buyers, sellers, and traders of downloadable digital items validated by nonfungible tokens (NFTs),” according to the application.
If the proposals are carried out, the NYSE will be competing with the popular NFT exchanges OpenSea and Rarible.
The NYSE said in a statement that it has no plans to introduce cryptocurrency or NFT trading in the near future, but that it “frequently examines new products and their impact on our trademarks and safeguards our intellectual property rights accordingly.”
The exchange coined its first set of NFTs last April and stated that it was just minting them for commemorative purposes, rather than selling them.
According to NYSE President Stacey Cunningham’s blog post on LinkedIn, the NFTs commemorate the first trade metadata for Unity, Coupang, Snowflake, Spotify, Roblox, and DoorDash. With this latest trademark filing, it’s clear that the NYSE has far bigger intentions for NFTs, including a foray into the cryptocurrency industry.