NFT Roundup #11: Celebrities and NFTs
Buy the rumor, sell the news
This is a curated newsletter, covering news stories about NFTs. The NFT market is moving rapidly, and this is an attempt to provide some means of keeping up with its developments. Your curator is Dave Friedman.
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As I expected, a number of celebrities/fashion designers/other public figures are getting into NFTs. The reason is pretty straightforward: there is a lot of hype surrounding NFTs right now, and celebrities have a nose for that which is popular. A celebrity won’t last long on the world’s stage if she doesn’t avail herself of opportunities to exploit popular trends.
Following is a selection of articles I found recently about celebrities (or their estates) doing various things with NFTs. I’m less interested here in the mechanics or utility of these NFTs, and more interested in how celebrity exposure to NFTs can make NFTs become mainstream. While some celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, have been investing in bitcoin for a while now, it is hard for the average person to connect bitcoin to celebrity.
NFTs look somewhat different. Celebrity-linked NFTs, if done well, create a connection, however fleeting, between the person (or her representatives) who created and issued the NFT, and the person, presumably a fan, who buys the NFT. To the extent that celebrities survive on the basis of their fans continuing to show up, NFTs may be a great way to further that relationship.
Rebecca Minkoff’s NFT show is the future of fashion
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, questions about the future of New York Fashion Week — and the industry at large — were hard to escape. Some wondered whether Fashion Week could even maintain relevance in such a rapidly changing landscape.
“I definitely get annoyed when people say that,” Rebecca Minkoff tells Bustle. “There’s an entire industry and ecosystem that their livelihoods depend on these fashion weeks. Nothing is ever going to go fully digital.”
Still, Minkoff sees value in the intersection of fashion and technology, recently becoming the first major American designer to enter the burgeoning NFT space, according to WWD. NFTs, or “non-fungible tokens,” can be used to represent different types of art, like photos, videos, audio, and digital versions of fashion designs.
“I do think the worlds are going to merge even more,” Minkoff says. “As we’re exploring these NFTs, there’s a world where you’ll have your avatar in the metaverse. You’ll go shopping, play your video game in your new Rebecca Minkoff outfit, but then that same outfit will arrive at your house.”
Why Tiger Woods, Tom Brady and others are joining in on the NFT craze
As with physical collectibles such as Beanie Babies, baseball cards and toys, there's a market for NFTs. The buyers tend to be tech-savvy individuals who understand the idea of wanting to purchase digital goods and likely made a killing this past year with cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, for example, went from just over $100 last March to a current price of about $3,400. In some cases, buyers are just flexing their digital wallets to show off how much crypto they have, but for others, there's a deeper interest.
"Specifically for art-related NFTs, there is a huge surge in demand due to their novelty and creativity of early artists," Jason Lau, chief operating officer of crypto exchange OKCoin, said in an email. "Whether it's a physical work with an attached NFT (think of it as a digital autograph and proof of veracity), or an entirely digital work (where the NFT is the art), this new medium is opening new ways for collectors and artists to explore their relationship with the artwork itself."
It's also great for the artists, says Lau. By selling digital art directly to those interested, an artist can begin monetizing work without having to try to sell it in a gallery.
Basketball player Kobe Bryant’s NFT art release KB24 teaser & roadmap
The KB24 project just launched a teaser & the roadmap for their Kobe Bryant NFT art collection, and it looks quite promising. Fans of the project can now get a glimpse of exactly what’s to come along with this highly anticipated Kobe Bryant NFT drop. You can check out the sneak peak on the official website.
According to the team’s official website, the rollout will start with an initial airdrop to collaborators, early adopters, and several lucky fans of the project. Following this, fans can expect the project to get formally listed on the OpenSea network, which will allow the NFTs to be traded after the initial mint.
Shortly after the mint is complete, the KB24 team is set to donate all proceeds to the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation. Along the way, the project will have several giveaways including rare NFTs and even courtside tickets to a Lakers game.
‘The Princess Bride’ joins the NFT trend with digital collectibles
Next week, characters and scenes from this cult-classic ’80s movie are joining the world of digital collectibles. In a partnership between The Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX) and Act III Licensing and Brand Management, fans will be able to buy packs of digital, collectible cards inspired by the movie.
The first drop of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will take place on Sept. 28, with a second drop a week later. Each of these drops will feature 900 card packs, with 10 cards in each pack. The packs will cost $100 each, and the cards inside will feature a variety of rarities.
NFTs based on Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury up for auction for AIDS charity
To mark the 75th birthday of late Freddie Mercury, British singer-songwriter of the legendary band Queen, four non-fungible token (NFT) artworks inspired by him are being auctioned off for charity. Three of them show Mercury while the fourth is a depiction of a grand white-gold piano with a crown nearby. The piano is surrounded by a pond. The auction is set by The Mercury Phoenix Trust on digital art marketplace SuperRare and the proceeds will go to the non-profit's mission to fight AIDS worldwide. The auction will run for 75 hours starting September 20.
Queen members, Brian May and Roger Taylor, and band manager, Jim Beach, founded the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity, in Mercury's memory. Mercury died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991. He would have turned 75 on September 5 this year.
The NFT artworks sold by the artists in the timed auction are made by artists Blake Kathryn, Chad Knight, Mat Maitland, and MBSJQ, the organisers said in a statement.