TL;DR Breakdown
- The National Basketball Association (NBA) is set to introduce 18,000 Ethereum-based NFTs today.
- The National Basketball Association Top Shot marketplace sees massive growth.
- The Association NFTs comprises 75 NFTs per player.
On 20 April 2022, the National Basketball Association (NBA) will begin minting its upcoming Ethereum NFT collection of 18,000 assets called The Association. For all teams in the 2022 NBA playoffs, there are 75 NFTs per player, for a total of 18,000 NFTs.
NBA set to launch “The Association” NFT collection
It’s been a great year for NFTs, with sports having emerged as one of the most exciting areas of innovation. Sponsorship agreements and increased player adoption of cryptocurrency have resulted from growing player and team interest. While interest is widespread across various sports categories, the NBA has been particularly innovative in the digital asset area.
Later today, the National Basketball Association will debut its new Ethereum (ETH) NFT collection, called The Association. Each Association NFT is an actual NBA player that has appeared in this year’s playoffs. There will be 75 NFTs for each player on the 16 participating teams.
The Association is a collection of dynamic NFTs that change appearance over time based on team and player on-court performance. The Association NFTs are being issued in a blind mint, meaning that nobody will know which 2022 NBA playoffs player they will receive prior to the reveal on April 22.
According to the announcement.
However, as with real players, these NFTs are not fixed. Based on each player’s real-life performance, NFT characteristics will change throughout the playoffs. It means that a certain number of dunks, blocks, three-pointers, rebounds, or assists will alter that player’s image according to the NFTs’ design. Additionally, NFT backgrounds and “frames” will change based on the player’s team’s performance.
Moreover, players will be assigned in an unknown manner and without prejudice using Chainlink (LINK) VRF. The method guarantees that every fan of the 16 playoff teams has an equal opportunity to create any player from the pool.
The Chainlink protocol, built on top of smart contract platforms, allows player appearances to be automatically altered based on pre-determined achievements coded into the Galaxis smart contract.
The cost of The Association’s NFTs will be quite low, as they won’t require expensive payment. Its website claims that the NFTs will be free to produce. On the other hand, collectors will have to pay for gas on Ethereum to mint NFTs. With that said, the National Basketball Association, on the other hand, plans to limit users to a single token per wallet and is reserving some assets for Top Shot NFT holders.
After the presale begins, the National Basketball Association will reveal the NFT art on Friday and be available for viewing and purchase on such platforms as OpenSea. Furthermore, during the minting process, the National Basketball Association kept some for owners of NBA Top Shot and limited others to a single per wallet.
The NBA Top Shot NFT marketplace growth and adoption surges
In 2020, the NBA and Dapper Labs launched the NBA NFT marketplace Top Shot, based on the Flow (FLOW) blockchain. The NBA announced that it would expand its Web3 support before the playoffs to create more community interaction.
The news comes shortly after the NBA established a Discord server (with almost 50,000 members) and a new Twitter account devoted to all things “NBA x NFT.” Following some claims, several noticed that the NBA had filed a trademark application for “The Association” branding earlier this month. The news reports fuelled interest among NFT enthusiasts.
While the NFT market as a whole is declining, interest in sports NFTs has remained intense. Last week, Swoops, a Gary Vaynerchuk-backed NFT basketball game, announced a $3.5 million funding round to develop its fantasy sports platform on Polygon.
The National Basketball Association has made a clear statement about the future of the crypto-digital trading industry. NBA Top Shot is a crypto-collectible that investors can acquire as a non-fungible token (NFT). Each collectible links to a blockchain, which provides each NFT with its own unique and unhackable certificate of authenticity.
