It’s been a dynamite fortnight for us in the collectibles trade, as assets both physical and digital smash records and generate headlines. As the original first-look newsletter reporting media and online culture through a collectibles lens, we’re taking this chance to re-examine ownership itself! What does it mean when digital-only purchases like NFT-backed or fractionalized collectibles take center stage?

Non-Fungible Tokens in particular raise interesting questions here. NFTs themselves are not artworks, or sports videos, or any of the other myriad things you’ve heard about them in conjunction with. While a marvel of blockchain technology, all that the majority of NFTs provide right now is a warm glow of satisfaction - you still can’t control or profit from free digital reproduction of these “assets” like you could with a traditional investment.

But as always, the true value of something is exactly what people will pay for it - and right now, people are paying a hell of a lot for these...

NFT boom transforms sports highlights and fancy GIFs into big money

The hype of a booming collectibles market has gone online at a scale few predicted, with the market cap on blockchain-backed digital collectibles mushrooming by tens of millions in the past week. Kicked off by a high profile auction of crypto-art by Christie’s, the mainstream investment market has welcomed this new range of assets - many of which only exist online - with open arms.

Even as some onlookers struggle to wrap their heads around what exactly all this money is being spent on, the NFT technology which enabled this market is spinning off exciting, big name projects. NBA Top Shot uses non-fungible tokens to reproduce the market dynamics and scarcity of real-life sports cards, but for flashy highlight gifs of LeBron and co. crushing dunks. While anyone can look these “moments” up on Youtube or even save a copy to their phones for free, that’s like taking a photo of the Mona Lisa - it’s only valuable to you.

The tokens ensure that only a few Top Shot users can claim “legit” copies of those big match-winning moments, and those are already changing hands for tens of thousands of dollars on the app’s user-to-user market. Total sales for the NBA itself - which operates Top Shot in partnership with its Players Association and specialist blockchain developer Dapper Labs - reached around $1 million per day in its first month.

The model is already successful enough to see several competitors rushing to market, with “digital soccer card” venture Sorare raising a cool $50 million in Series A funding.

Digital cherubs and fallen giants a hit with the fine art crowd

But it’s still the world of art collecting which has seen the biggest impact from NFT-backed digital objects. The extremely-online Grimes cashed in on her understanding of the trend with a new crypto-art collection under her “War Nymph” persona, consisting of surreal animations set to original electronic music. The limited-run sale featured both “one-of-one” pieces tied to a single token (and owner) as well as others which allowed several thousand bidders to walk away with official, identical copies. Grimes sold out all those tokens in 20 minutes to the tune of $6 million.

But it is a midwesterner named Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann leading the charge on NFT art. Like Grimes, Beeple’s enviable position at the front of this volcanic market surge was engineered through a combination of tech savvy and shrewd pop art marketing. Having built a brand around his daily digital artworks long before the current fad, Beeple’s blunt portrayal of politics and crass, cynical tone garnered easy media attention; and through that, introduced NFTs to curious eyes in the art world.

Established art collector Pablo Rodriguez Fraile spent $67,000 on Beeple’s Trump-Biden election piece last year, which at the time depicted the two as aging, bloodied boxers squaring up to fight. Having been advertised as a “piece in progress”, it has since evolved to show a fallen Trump scorned and graffitied by passersby. Sensing a moment, Fraile flipped his token for the art for $6.6 million at the height of this week’s buzz, having held it for just four months.

So, will this optimism around NFTs last? While the technology seems like a novelty at present, the extra attention and respect it brings to talented digital artists is long overdue. And with pandemic conditions pushing us closer to an always-online existence, the idea of owning purely digital objects is not so far-fetched! In a potential Matrix-like VR future, NFTs will become the key to securing individuality and ownership for literally everything - the glue holding digital society together.

A holy grail of gaming goes fractional: Mythic Markets launches Metroid!

That’s right! We're making our own news this week as we debut our first offering of a vintage video game: Nintendo’s 1987 masterpiece, Metroid. This moody sci-fi adventure puts players in control of bounty hunter Samus Aran for the first time ever, blasting and morph-balling through a hostile starbase to destroy its controlling Mother Brain.

Metroid was the sophomore success which proved Nintendo could make something besides Super Mario Bros. - and coincidentally, contributed even more to current game design! Besides popularizing the genre of non-linear open worlds with power-up based progression, which modern critics simply call “metroidvanias”, Samus Aran’s stunning face reveal at the end credits scene gave gaming its first - and still most widely beloved - female superstar. Appearing in countless Metroid and Smash Bros. games since, Samus kickstarted her 25-year legend with this single, unassuming cartridge.

We take pride in offering the most desirable geek collectibles for fractional investment on our digital marketplace. When you purchase shares in our new GAM-METRD offering, you’re buying equity in a 9.4 A+ graded copy from top games authentication group WATA, dated to a rare mid-production run bearing the original design for Nintendo’s famous Seal of Quality. Perfectly preserved in a retail backroom for years after release, this is the highest grade specimen of its type in the world.

GAM-METRD has been divided into 2000 shares available through Mythic Markets at just $25 each. Go ahead - take your shot!

Fast fandom

As always, there is a ton going on in the interconnected world of pop culture and fan media. Here are a few of the stories that caught our eye:

Hasbro investor call aims high with some magical announcements

The annual investor call for global toymaker Hasbro included some eye-opening discussion around Wizards of the Coast, its boardgaming subsidiary which publishes Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The latter had a landmark 2020 in spite of the pandemic, pushing a record $800 million in sales through new product lines and its successful Magic Arena online client.

This has all encouraged Hasbro to break taboos around crossing over MtG with outside IPs, announcing tie-in sets to feature Lord of the Rings and another bastion of nerd-dom, Warhammer 40K. Wizards of the Coast itself will see big changes, as Hasbro spins the group off into its own division called “Wizards & Digital” - a nod to the importance of Arena, and a continuing shift away from Magic’s long association with brick-and-mortar stores.

Netflix & director Zack Snyder deliver zombie-heist hybrid surprise

Zack Snyder has one of the most powerful names in Hollywood right now, after building a cult following through his tumultuous tenure in charge of the DC Extended Universe. Powerful enough to get a new full-length zombie action flick out of development hell in 2021, even.

The generically-titled Army of the Dead does feature a twist on the horror formula however, putting Dave Bautista at the head of a mercenary team which heists a post-apocalypse casino. Netflix will release the film on May 21, and is already gunning for a full franchise set in this universe. A prequel film and supporting anime titled Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas are reportedly waiting in the wings.

NBA's rising star is officially the GOAT - in rookie card sales

It’s only been a few weeks since Mythic Messenger put the sports card craze under a microscope, and things have not calmed down even one bit in that time. The latest landmark sale came just yesterday, with a new high of $4.6 million - more than doubling the record price for a basketball rookie card.

But what’s really eye-opening here is the rookie in question - not the established GOAT Michael Jordan, or modern titans like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose cards were responsible for the previous records. Slovenian marvel Luka Doncic has only just turned 22, his National Treasures rookie card printed as part of the 2018-19 class. While Doncic shows every sign of embarking on an historic career, this can only be seen as a speculative purchase - one which shows how confident collectors have become in sports card investments.

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