Who Is Paying $600 For A Digital Jack Harlow Branded Basketball?

Over $10 million has been spent on NBA Top Shot moments over the last 24 hours. Hoping to take advantage of the craze surrounding basketball-related non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Bleacher Report is minting and preparing to sell its own NFTs on March 7.

The media platform has partnered with four hip-hop artists -- Quavo, Lil Baby, 2 Chainz and Jack Harlow -- to create and share in the revenue associated with 2 classes of NFTs. The "B/R Open Run NFT Collection" will feature a GOLD edition that is limited to 10 basketball images per artist and sold at an auction that has no floor. The other option is to purchase a SILVER edition that has an unlimited quantity and will be sold for .4 ETH (which is currently worth around $600 USD).

It took Bleacher Report 2 weeks from conception to execution on this project. It is being assisted by OpenSea, which is the largest NFT marketplace for buying, selling, and discovering rare digital items.

At its core, purchasers will be obtaining digital tokens, as is true for any type of NFT acquisition. Those digital tokens connected to the GOLD and SILVER editions can then be resold for whatever value the marketplace attaches to these uniquely identified images.

There was roughly $62 million exchanged in association with NFTs in 2019. That number grew to $250 million in 2020. In the last month alone, approximately $250 million was spent on NBA Top Shot NFTs. Bleacher Report has recognized an opportunity that it wants to exploit. Whether the growth in this space is sustainable is unknown, as is whether a marketplace will exist and flourish attached to newer NFT projects like Bleacher Report's effort.