Uh oh – Canon just got into the NFT business

Canon has announced that it will soon be launching a curated photography marketplace for digital art (NFTs) from innovative creators, and it's called Cadabra. 

Very little has been provided in the way of information surrounding this new NFT platform, with the announcement from Canon US taking the form of a simple two-sentence tweet and a newsletter sign-up link. 

• These are the best stock photo sites for photographers to sell images

Is Canon being deliberately secretive about this newly developed online marketplace? Or is there really nothing interesting to share yet in the way of specifics and details? "Coming soon" is also an extremely vague timeframe. Next week? Next year? When we could actually start using this new marketplace is unspecified, but at least a website has been created called Cadabra.io.

According to a report by Decrypt, the new platform will be hosted in the form of an Ethereum NFT (Non-Fungible Token) blockchain, and can be described as a curated marketplace for photographers to sell tokenized photographs. Ethereum is an open-source software, and decentralized blockchain platform, which uses 'Ether' as the native cryptocurrency for any sales. 

The concept of NFTs, navigating the blockchain, ownership, gas fees, and understanding cryptocurrency is still super confusing to a lot of photographers and content creators (us included). So to help make a bit more sense of it all, take a look at our NFT explainer . 

The article by Decrypt also suggests that Cadabra will only be launching in the US initially, and will also enable participating artists and photographers to offer physical prints of their images to purchasers (which Canon itself will fulfill). 

Canon jumping into the world of NFTs at this late stage is a little surprising, especially with the rise of AI image-generators dominating the webspace at the moment, rendering the concept of NFTs almost forgotten. We reported over a year ago that NFTs are coming to Instagram, as confirmed by Zuckerberg himself, but we're yet to see this or any timescale supporting its development. 

Previously, Canon dipped its toe into the world of NFTs last year when it joined up with the NFT marketplace, Immutable Image, and eight renowned Canon legends minted their images as NFTs as part of the Legends program. 

Would you ever consider turning your best photographs into sellable NFTs? If the process was made as easy as possible for photographers to follow, and more accessible for those a little less tech-savvy, then it could certainly be the future of selling photographs online. Let us know your thoughts and whether you agree!

You might also be interested in how to make your first photography NFT, as well as how photographers can make money with NFTs. You can also check out the best Canon cameras and best Canon lenses.