The company’s closed pilot program is aimed at letting companies increase customer engagement and manage NFTs from within Salesforce’s wide-ranging CRM platform. Credit: Hera Stock / Getty Salesforce is rolling out a closed pilot program for a new service called NFT Cloud, allowing users to mint and manage NFTs for brand engagement and marketing purposes, even as the wider crypto market continues to spiral. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are best understood as a method of fingerprinting a particular piece of art, code or almost anything else stored digitally, using the same fundamental blockchain technology as cryptocurrency to create a unique copy of that item. The idea is, since that item is uniquely identifiable, it becomes “non-fungible” and can hold a particular value in the marketplace, in the same way that a famous work of art has value that a reproduction does not. Salesforce emphasized in its announcement that the NFT Cloud platform doesn’t support proof-of-work blockchains — the creation of many cryptocurrencies are based on the use of huge amounts of computing power, with commensurately large energy costs and carbon footprints, and Salesforce is likely looking to avoid the criticism that many have leveled at the cryptocurrency sector. The company says that it will instead use proof-of-stake blockchain technology, which nearly eliminates energy consumption from blockchain use, and that the NFT Cloud will automatically calculate carbon emissions for blockchain options, thus allowing users to track their carbon footprint directly from the platform. Salesforce also announced plans to address another common bugaboo of the crypto world — security. By using smart contract templates to ensure honest transactions and branded purchasing technology to protect against fraud, the company hopes to obviate the rash of hacking and fraud that has plagued NFTs and cryptocurrency over the past several years. The crypto market has seen a lot of enterprise interest of late, but businesses looking to jump into the technology face a number of hurdles. The complexities of asset ownership in the digital realm are likely to be unfamiiar to most organizations, creating new security risks that companies will have to navigate. Centralized platforms for the exchange of digital goods are likely to suffer from the same vulnerabilities as other ecommerce sites, and because of the nature of the blockchain, transactions aren’t easily reversible if a fraud is perpetrated. Moreover, scams to gain access to NFT and crypto wallets are commonplace, and some users might not be aware of the need to conduct in-depth testing on blockchain products earmarked for enterprise use. Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin, a leading cryptocurrency, has decline by more than 50% in the past seven months. Salesforce didn’t announce a date for the pilot program going public, or any details of wider availability. Related content feature Office 365: A guide to the updates Get the latest info on new features, bug fixes, and security updates for Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows as they roll out from Microsoft. Now updated for Version 2404 (Build 17531.20152), released on May 14, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 14, 2024 110 mins Microsoft 365 Microsoft Office Office Suites feature Windows 11: A guide to the updates Here’s what you need to know about the latest updates to Windows 11 as they’re released from Microsoft. Now updated for KB5037771, released on May 14, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 14, 2024 60 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 feature Windows 10: A guide to the updates Here's what you need to know about each update to the current version of Windows 10 as it's released from Microsoft. Now updated for KB5037768, released on May 14, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 14, 2024 172 mins Small and Medium Business Windows 10 Microsoft news analysis Apple reports on its forever war against App Store fraud Apple prevented over $1.8 billion worth of potential fraud in 2023 alone — that’s up 20% in four years. By Jonny Evans May 14, 2024 6 mins Apple Mobile Apps Application Security Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe