NBA Top Shot moments are now being bought at sold on eBay. The blockchain-based platform of specially created, numbered video clips has become a monster hit less than a year after it launched in beta. Over a recent 30-day period, Top Shot had a sales volume of nearly $125 million, pacing all Crypto collectible markets.
The platform is a collaboration between the NBA, its Players Association and Dapper Labs
In Top Shot, digital “packs” are opened with short highlight clips and rare “Moments” that can be collected, traded or sold. The attraction of Top shot brings together a pair of hot markets in sports cards and cryptocurrency, although traditional card collectors have generally resisted calling anything digital a “card.”
NBA Top Shot moments are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which create digital ownership with scarcity built in. Dapper Labs determines the quantity of each highlight and places a number on them, similar to a serial number on a physical trading card. The “moments” selected for packs are designated Common, Rare or Legendary. That’s what determines the prices of the packs.
Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain enables participants to own the digital collectibles and have the autonomy to buy/sell/trade them for real-money results.
New Moments drop every week and Top Shot is already a robust marketplace. The platform has been averaging over 30,000 new users per week.
Following a beta test, Top Shot opened to the public in October 2020 and was a hit out of the gate. By mid-February, 14 over two dozen Top Shot moments had sold for $50,000 or more, including three sales that reached six figures: two blocks by Zion Williamson and a dunk by LeBron James.
Recent eBay sales have included a Luka Doncic dunk that went for $30,000 and a Cool Cats set (13/13) that netted $18,000. Not all are nearly that pricey, of course.
Players themselves have been buying into the game.
“Collecting NBA Top Shots is a lot of fun – and thanks to the Flow blockchain, your collections are worth real money,” stated Roham Gharegozlou, CEO, Dapper Labs, adding, “the NBA Top Shot community is the best I’ve ever worked with: people are always happy to help. We knew that the benefits of blockchain would be obvious to sports fans, they’re already collectors, after all, but to scale to the size of basketball fandom, it had to be on Flow.”
“I’m a big believer in the fact that technology can make people’s lives better, and blockchain is one of those kinds of technologies,” said Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic. “NBA Top Shot, on a scalable blockchain like Flow, is the first time fans can own a piece of the on-court action, and who wouldn’t want that?”
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who recently became one of the investors in Goldin Auctions, a traditional sports card and memorabilia marketplace, is a big believer in Top Shot, stating in his blog that it has parallels to the sports card market but is less laborious. “You have all the fun, none of those risks, and the value is still set by the same laws of supply and demand,” he wrote.
Some NBA Top Shot moments are now being sold on eBay. You can see them all here and get a look at the ‘most watched’ NBA Top Shot auction listings via the list below. Of course, you must have a Top Shot account to buy anything.
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