Major League Baseball has announced its latest move to make money on the NFT craze: official blockchain versions based on classic Topps baseball cards. Topps sells the new NFT baseball cards through the WAX blockchain, which the company used for its earliest blockchain-based collectibles.
The first ‘Series 1’ cards will go on sale from April 20, with 50,000 standard packs (containing six cards for $ 5) and approximately 24,000 premium packs (offering 45 cards for $ 100) will go on sale in the first wave. Topps also offers a free ‘exclusive Topps MLB Opening Day NFT Pack’ to the first 10,000 users who sign up for email alerts for new releases.
This is a similar idea to the NBA’s glowing Top Shot NFTs, which fans can buy videos (called Moments) in card-like packages. Top Shot Moments is already a huge business – some have sold for more than $ 200,000 and more than 800,000 accounts have generated more than $ 500 million in sales so far.
And while the Topps baseball cards will not be full-fledged videos like Top Shot Moments, the company plans to take advantage of the digital nature of the NFT cards by adding things like animated backgrounds or holographic effects to rarer cards. Nor is it the MLB’s first dip in cryptocurrency: the league has experimented with Ethereum-based blockchain bubbles. MLB Champions game too. However, the Topps cards promise a more traditional collecting style.
Topps’ collectible baseball cards have been around for decades and bring a degree of name recognition and respect to the world of collectibles that other NFT efforts may lack. But it will still have to convince fans that the digital versions of these cards are a good investment and not just a bubble waiting to burst.