Topps, the baseball card and candy company, is putting its latest series of collectible cards on the WAX Blockchain in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — digital assets that are moving in on the world of physical collectibles.
“We’re excited to be working with a venerable heritage brand like Topps to tokenize MLB trading cards for the modern collector,” said William Quigley, co-founder of Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX), a decentralized network for creating, buying, selling, and trading NFTs.
This isn't the first NFT and sport collectible crossover. NBA Top Shot, an officially licensed marketplace for digital basketball collectibles, consistently sees some of the highest daily sales volumes of NFTs on the web, according to cryptoslam.io.
As the official provider of Major League Baseball's licensed trading cards, Topps could play a similar role.
While WAX has a background in video games, it's now struck several partnerships aimed at digitizing physical collectibles, such as the popular Funko Pops figurines. Working with WAX, Funko launched its first NFTs in March at a starting price of $9.99.
The company is also partnering with Topps on the release of a Godzilla collection featuring imagery from the iconic franchise, which was recently revived with the release of Godzilla vs. Kong.
“We’ve been one of the first brands to fully embrace the potential of non-fungible tokens,” said Tobin Lent, vice president and general manager of digital at Topps, in a statement when the Godzilla collection was announced. “By partnering early with WAX and their state-of-the-art trading platform, we’ve been able to create a fun and accessible digital ecosystem for fans with all levels of experience."
Topps MLB collectibles will include 1,986 cards with 10 different levels of rarity. The official launch of the series will take place on Tuesday, April 20 at 1 p.m. ET.
