Topps Launching First Official Major League Baseball NFT Card Series

[Micky]

Major League Baseball is taking a swing at the NFT market.

Topps on Monday announced it will release its 2021 flagship baseball card collection as NFTs for the first time, in partnership with MLB and MLB Players Inc., the for-profit commercial arm of the MLB Players Association.

These are the first official MLB-sanctioned NFTs; Panini has launched blockchain-based cards, but does not have a licensing deal with the league.

The Topps MLB NFT series will go live on April 20 on the WAX blockchain (Worldwide Asset Exchange), which Topps also used for its Garbage Pail Kids NFTs last month, its first time turning its trading cards into NFTs. Topps says its Series 1 NFTs will include "iconic throwback card templates, anniversary sets, and a Legendary Limited-Edition 1 of 1 Platinum Anniversary Signature card."



NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are blockchain-based crypto tokens that, unlike Bitcoin, represent ownership deeds to digital or physical assets (like virtual trading cards, albums, artwork, or concert tickets) and are verifiably scarce, typically one of a limited batch or sometimes one of a kind. The market for NFTs has exploded, with certain rarer examples fetching millions of dollars.

The 10 Most Expensive NFTs Ever Sold
MLB has tried crypto collectibles before. In 2018, it partnered with LucidSight to launch MLB Crypto Baseball, cartoon bobbleheads traded via the Ethereum blockchain. They did not catch on, even though CryptoKitties was wildly popular at the time.

Three years later, NFTs are booming, and MLB sees an opportunity to get it right. CryptoKitties developer Dapper Labs and the NBA have a massive success with NBA Top Shot, where the NFTs are video highlight clips like a LeBron James dunk or Zion Williamson block.

The question is whether MLB Crypto Baseball was before its time, or wasn't quite the right swing for MLB in the crypto space, or—the worst case for MLB—its fanbase just isn't interested in crypto collectibles the way NBA fans are.

Topps Launching First Official Major League Baseball NFT Card Series
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