Alt.xyz – Gandi customer – (United States)
The .xyz community is home to forward-thinking innovators pioneering the field of alternative assets. Ethereum-based cryptocurrency wallet Monolith.xyz makes it easier for users to buy, store, and spend their cryptocurrency assets. NFT platform Manifold.xyz helps web3 creators like Jay-Z mint their digital art with baked-in smart contracts. Music-focused platform Relics.xyz helps fans to collect and display music collectibles as digital assets, which can be traded or used as utilities in the Metaverse. In this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, we’ll introduce you to a platform that is spotlighting collectible trading cards as an alternative asset: Alt.xyz.
Alt.xyz is the online home of Alt, an alternative asset platform for those looking to research, trade, and securely store high-value collectible trading cards. The platform, which can be accessed on desktop or mobile app, originated with a sports card focus but has since expanded to include non-sports collectible cards, such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh gaming cards. Alt.xyz launched in March 2021 with $31 million in funding. After four funding rounds, the platform has now raised a total of $306 million.2 Financial backers include early-stage investment fund BoxGroup, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian (who was recently wearing an Alt.xyz branded cap while watching Serena Williams play against Danka Kovinic in the US Open2), and professional athletes like NFL quarterback Tom Brady and NBA forward Kevin Durant.3
The platform features a marketplace for buying and selling trading cards, as well as a safe place to store them. In order to sell a card on Alt.xyz, its condition must first be reviewed and graded by one of the leading third-party trading card authentication and grading groups such as Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) or Beckett Grading Services (BGS). Users then send the card to the Alt.xyz vault, a light-controlled, temperature-controlled, fire-protected facility. Once your card reaches the vault, it is added to your Alt.xyz portfolio. Your card can now be displayed as part of your verified collection, sold on the Alt.xyz exchange, or even borrowed against using the platform’s new lending service called Alt Advance. If you opt to sell your card, ownership can be instantly transferred to the buyer (with Alt.xyz taking a 1.5% portion of each sale). Purchased cards automatically stay in the vault, but owners are able to have their cards pulled from the vault and shipped to them. Many buyers are primarily buying the cards as investments, so they opt to leave the cards in the vault for safekeeping.
Alt.xyz launched Alt Advance in July 2022, which helps collectors borrow up to 40% of their portfolio’s value for up to 12 months at an annual interest rate of 9%-10%. The platform has been rolling out this service on a state-by-state basis because lending regulations vary by region. Alt.xyz hopes to make the service available to all 50 states by the end of 2022.
Founder and CEO Leore Avidar is no stranger to investing or the world of tech startups. He is also the founder and CEO of direct mail platform Lob, and is an angel investor in such startups as performance management platform Lattice and online media platform Curio. Alt.xyz aims to expand into other alternative assets beyond trading cards such as luxury watches and sneaker collections. According to their LinkedIn profile, Alt.xyz envisions a world where anything is an investable asset. Alt previously upgraded their domain from OnlyAlt.com to the more memorable Alt.xyz.
As their team shared with us,
“We officially transitioned our domain from onlyalt.com to Alt.xyz in June when our company went through a rebrand. We are big proponents of Web3 and are excited about the future of it. One of our long term missions at ALT is connecting the digital and physical world, so changing our domain to Alt.xyz was an important step in our rebrand to reflect that mission.”
We are proud to have innovators like Leore defining the .xyz community, and look forward to seeing how their services evolve and continue expanding the world of alternative assets. You can learn more by following the platform on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and by visiting Alt.xyz.
1. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alt-5960/company_financials
2. https://sports.yahoo.com/serena-williams-daughter-pays-tribute-050824968.html
3. https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/20/alt-gets-into-lending-to-let-you-borrow-money-against-your-trading-card-collection/
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