NFT Investment Hits New Highs as Top IPs Join the Fray
Recently, the surge in GameFi concepts and applications has brought renewed momentum to the NFT market. Against the backdrop of eye-catching DeFi, metaverse , and chain game sectors, the NFT market has been hitting new highs, with trading market activity and trading volume repeatedly setting new records. According to a Coin Metrics report, over the past two weeks, NFT sales have grown explosively, with the largest NFT marketplace OpenSea reaching a peak of 60,000 daily sales, nearly 8 times the peak from March this year.
Another reflection of market heat is the wave of luxury brands—including Louis Vuitton and many other top IPs—launching series featuring NFT elements. These series mostly leverage games as a vehicle, adding NFT reward mechanics within the gameplay. Take Louis Vuitton's "Louis: The Game," released for the 200th anniversary of its founder's birth: players obtain golden postcards through the game, then enter a lottery page for a chance to win NFTs, with the expected minimum prize reportedly around 150,000 RMB.
Which Top IPs Have Entered the NFT Space?
Beyond the luxury brand LV mentioned above, Burberry—a fellow top-tier luxury label—has taken a more in-depth approach to NFT integration, launching NFT virtual collectible toys in its game "Blankos Block Party." Players can collect, upgrade, and sell Blankos NFT collectibles, and in-game accessories including backpacks and armbands can be equipped on the collectibles owned by players. Through training, collectibles can develop unique abilities in speed, agility, and other areas, adding distinctiveness and scarcity that gives each collectible a more concrete market value.
Marvel, which owns numerous well-known anime IPs, previously announced plans with its partners to launch NFT products including comics and statues. In early August this year, Marvel officially released Spider-Man themed NFT collectibles. As Marvel's first IP launch, the Spider-Man series is limited in quantity, with individual NFTs priced from $40 to $400.
In July this year, Coca-Cola also launched an NFT gift box called The Friendship Box, containing four NFTs with brand elements: a vintage-style Coca-Cola vending machine, a friendship card from the collectible card series launched in the 1950s, audio recordings of various bottle-opening moments, and a bubble jacket wearable in the Decentraland environment.
Compared to the sectors listed above, the sports sector entered the NFT space even earlier. Star football and basketball player IPs have been highly sought after in the NFT market. In April, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James' "Moment" was sold for nearly $390,000. When the Tokyo Olympics were held this year, the International Olympic Committee also launched official Olympic NFT memorabilia—the first batch reportedly sold out on the day of the Olympic opening ceremony.
Why Are Top IPs Flooding Into the NFT Track?
Enhancing brand influence and extending brand culture are among the key reasons why many top IPs are entering the NFT track. Although top IPs already have a very deep user base and widely spread brand culture, passing on and sustaining brand influence requires fresh blood. How to innovate while offering new ideas that the public can embrace and that generate buzz is a critical breakthrough direction for these brands—this determines where they will focus their promotional efforts: somewhere sufficiently new and sufficiently discussable.
For traditional industries, adding digital elements to their cultural merchandise brings consumers an entirely new consumption experience. In a modern society where virtual worlds are becoming increasingly normalized, people's acceptance of digital online formats has reached a new level. Experiences combining art IPs with the virtual world ensure a degree of acceptability while satisfying people's preference for novelty-seeking. NFTs and the NFT world have inherent appeal.
Beyond meeting the brand IPs' demand for "newness," the NFT track already has mature manufacturing, launch, and sales mechanisms in place. It can transform a brand's long-accumulated brand history and design elements into virtually any type of virtual item, fulfilling the brand's need for cultural promotion and helping brands monetize their well-established IPs and designs digitally. Furthermore, the success of numerous existing well-known artworks, celebrity IPs, and other trial cases has partially demonstrated this track's stability and profitability.
Conclusion
NFTs not only bring a new imagination for the virtual world, but also bring opportunities for transformation and change in traditional industries. As culture progressively migrates and manifests from tangible carriers such as paper and sculpture onto digital ones, NFTs will continue creating more diverse options for top IPs and popular figures in the blockchain world. Traditional industries will deeply integrate with new things such as blockchain, and there will be more experiments like GameFi in the future. When the virtual world more fully satisfies people's economic and cultural needs, perhaps we will find that the vision of the metaverse remains too limited and not colorful enough.
Disclaimer
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