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Comment by hanklazard | Hacker News Reader

I find their explanation so strange… they are adding it to their “collection of historic commerce artifacts”? Do they run a financial network or a museum?

If I were a shareholder, I would not be happy with this move.

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It's $150,000~ that is not even a error on Visa's accounting budget.

Yeah I’m just saying out of principle it seems like a ridiculous move.

It’s called brand marketing. Here we are talking about it.

Who is their target market exactly?

IME (at least in Europe) you get either Visa or Mastercard depending on what your bank uses, and I don't think there are any differences.

Two tweets down, they posted:

> Curious about NFTs and how to integrate them in your brand strategy?

And then there's a link taking you to a page called:

> NTFs: Engaging Today’s Fans in Crypto and Commerce

Yeah, it's marketing now. And later, it will be used/loaned for seemingly academic articles/exhibits about commerce and crypto sponsored by Visa.

It could be seen as legitimizing crypto as money, which represents an existential threat to VISA's entire business model.

In that case you'd be horrified to learn what some large listed companies spend on their historical museums.

It's a marketing move that cost them $150k and will get them talked about, featured in many publications, and seen as "hip".

You mean it’s an investment of 150k that will likely be worth 1M by the end of the year, AND makes them seem hip.

I think it's pretty common for major companies to have an archive of industry milestones (like the Honda Collection Hall). Plus what they paid for this NFT is probably cheap for the PR they get in return, positioning them as a hip crypto player instead of a stogy old payment processing company.

>Deutsche Bank Will Sell Off 200 Modern Works From Its Corporate Collection to Pivot Its Focus to Contemporary Art

>The bank, which says it wants to buy more "up-and-coming talents," bought several works at Frieze London.

https://news.artnet.com/market/sale-deutsche-bank-1914074

Lots of companies seem to spend money on non-business related things, so there seem to be some provisions for that in the usual shareholder agreements?

Many art exhibitions seem to be sponsored by financial institutions, for example.

It's a form of marketing/advertising.

If it pumps their stock, why would shareholder be not happy about it.

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