Major League Baseball has announced its latest move to cash in on the NFT craze: official blockchain-based versions of the classic Topps baseball cards. Topps is selling the new NFT baseball cards via the WAX blockchain, which the company has used for its first blockchain-based collectibles.
The first cards of “Series 1” will be sold starting April 20, with 50,000 standard packs (containing six cards for $5) and around 24,000 premium packs (containing 45 cards for $100) to be sold in the first wave. Topps is also offering a free “Exclusive Topps MLB Opening Day NFT Pack” to the first 10,000 users who sign up to receive email alerts of new releases.
It’s a similar idea to the NBA’s hot Top Shot NFTs, which offer fans purchasable video clips (called Moments) in card-like packages. Top Shot Moments is already a massive business: some have sold for over $200,000 and over 800,000 accounts have generated over $500 million in sales so far.
And while Topps’ baseball cards won’t be full-length videos like Top Shot Moments, the company plans to take advantage of the digital nature of NFT cards by adding things like animated backgrounds or holographic effects on rarer cards. It’s not MLB’s first dive into cryptocurrency, either: the league has also experimented with Ethereum-based blockchain bobbleheads in its MLB Champions game. However, Topps cards promise a more traditional style of collecting.
Topps collectible baseball cards have been around for decades and bring a level of name recognition and respectability to the world of collectibles that other NFT efforts may lack. But you’ll still need to convince fans that the digital versions of those cards are a good investment and not just a bubble that’s about to burst.
Microsoft is releasing a single line of the Surface Pro 9 for 2022. It marks the combination of the Surface Pro X and the Surface Pro, as you can now choose between Intel or Arm. We also take a look at the Surface Studio 2 Plus model that upgrades both the CPU and GPU inside. Also, The Surface Laptop 5 arrives with Thunderbolt 4 but no AMD options.
