• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 29, 2022

To the faithful, Web3 economics are the new gold. On Tuesday, a developer announced what it claimed to be the first NFT backed by actual gold.

The developer, Honolulu-based Smart Lab Inc., said it launched of the gold-backed NFT sale on March 25, branding the NFT's the "Golden Frog" (see digital image above).

Dubbed the "world's first generative NFT," the company said the NFTs are backed by a gold refining and marketing consortium agreement with Utah-based mining company Scott/Westpac LLC.

"When a user purchases Golden Frog NFT, the physical gold purchased by the user is stored by a U.S. security company and can be withdrawn in physical form anywhere in the world," the company said in a statement explaining the financial mechanism for the gold-backed NFTs, adding that utilizing a real-world commodity like gold provides a hedge against future NFT market fluctuations.

"We are confident that NFT, neither stocks nor real estates, will play a leading role in the next generation of assets. On the other hand, gold has universally been one of the oldest assets in the human history," it said, adding, "The Golden Frog is an epoch-making work that combines the history and stability of gold with an NFT."

Smart Labs said it is issuing five Golden Frog NFT denominations worth their weights in gold, literally. Specifically, 10g, 50g, 100g, 300g and 500g.

They will be sold as a total of 5,000 pieces of the generative art.