With NFT Digital Art Buzz Now Just A Faint Hum, LG Shutting Down Its Display-Focused Art Lab

March 24, 2025 by Dave Haynes

Cast your mind all the way back to 2022, and try to recall whether you thought the money and company resources being put in digital art packaged up as crypto-sold NFTs hit you as super-cool and the future, or perhaps more baffling than anything, or clearly stupid.

I was very firmly in the “I don’t get it” middle camp – and that may well have been the marketplace response.  This is relevant because some big tech companies bought into the 2022 buzz and started their own marketplaces for NFTs, allowing customers to manage, store and present NFT art on their display hardware. Samsung launched one and, as often happens, LG then did one, too.

Putting NFTs on digital displays and making them appear to float, rotate or cycle through visuals like a gallery were mainly positioned as a consumer thing, but also touted as new B2B use-cases for digital signage – something that most people who’ve been around the industry block a few times greeted with a raised-eyebrows “Ok, sure …” response.

Now there is word that LG is shutting down LG Art Lab, an NFT marketplace for displays that it spun up in Sept. 2022. LG says it has made the “difficult decision” to close the platform on June 17th. “As the NFT space continues to evolve, we believe it is the right time to shift our focus and explore new opportunities,” LG says.

Samsung runs/ran (not sure of its state) an NFT marketplace with a third party company called Nifty Gateway.