Crypto + Blockchain Meets NBA TOP SHOT
WRITTEN BY DEDE WRIGHT-DEMARIAN, social media coordinator
Trading cards are no stranger to the sports world.
In the early 1900s, trading cards began making their mark, and as tobacco companies sought to boost sales, what we know today as the tradition of trading cards bloomed. Basketball trading cards came to be about in the mid-1900s and now in the early decades of the 2000s the way we experience NBA trading cards has evolved massively with the emergence of NBA Top Shot.
So what is NBA Top Shot???
The NBA, NBA Players Association, and Dapper Labs joined together to create NBA Top Shot, which began in July 2019. NBA Top Shot is a blockchain-based platform that provides officially licensed highlight videos that fans can buy, sell, and trade like traditional trading cards. A blockchain is simply a digital record of transactions. NBA Top Shot uses similar principles as cryptocurrencies with non-fungible tokens.
How does it work?
As mentioned earlier, Top Shot’s trading cards are licensed highlight videos. These are real, in-game plays that the league owns the license for in regards to the actual highlights. Through Top Shot’s platform fans can own a limited edition version of these highlights formed as virtual video cards also known as moments.
The league gets to choose which highlights are being used and chops them up into condensed versions. From there Dapper Labs numbers the highlights by choosing how many of each will be sold. Just like traditional trading cards, they’re put into packs and are sold on the NBA Top Shot website.
The prices for packs range from $9 to $230. The exclusiveness of the card, who the player is, and the quality of the highlight determine the price of each pack. The drop schedule for packs isn’t announced beforehand. On top of this, you can buy only one pack at a time making them extremely limited and exclusive. When fans purchase a pack, it immediately goes into their highlight wallet which is encrypted. These moments can be showcased in the fan’s virtual collection or resold, which is where the NBA Top Shot Marketplace comes in. Top Shot’s marketplace is where cards have been sold for incredibly large amounts. Certain cards have been bidding for upwards of $100,000 or more.
NBA Top Shot is still a relatively new concept with a vast majority of ways to grow as a platform and expand into other avenues. The NBA, NBPA. and Dapper Labs joined forces to create an innovative cryptocurrency platform that will change the way we see the sports trading world. In an era where digital consumption in the sports world is at an all-time high, there’s no surprise over 40,000 NBA fans have joined Top Shot already and, needless to say, there are many more to come.
Photo by Mick Haupt - @rocinante_11
