Crazy rush! Jay Chou enters the Metaverse, selling 62 million yuan in 40 minutes... Why is NFT so popular?

The popular NFT continues to gain popularity in recent days.

After NBA star Stephen Curry and singer JJ Lin rushed to buy NFT avatars, Jay Chou also joined the game recently.

The 62 million yuan NFT project was sold out in less than an hour

On January 1, the metaverse platform Ezek and Jay Chou's fashion brand PHANTACi launched the first limited-edition NFT project Phanta Bear, with an upper limit of 10,000 units and a unit price of 0.26 Ether (about RMB 6,200), for a total price of over RMB 62 million.

Thanks to Jay Chou's support, a large number of users flocked to the platform's sales channel as soon as it was opened, and the webpage was once stuck. 3,000 units were sold within 5 minutes, and all were sold out in about 40 minutes.

As early as December 18, 2021, Ezek, a trendy art and entertainment experience platform, revealed that it would launch its first NFT project Phanta Bear in collaboration with PHANTACi. According to the official website, Phanta Bear NFT can also serve as a membership card for the Ezek Club. In the future, it may be used to purchase celebrity peripherals at a preferential price, obtain discounts on trendy products, and be used as a ticket to participate in celebrity VR/XR virtual concerts.

Source: Ezek official website

Public information shows that Ezek is a digital entertainment platform built on blockchain technology by Starvision Entertainment Ltd. (SEL). A few days ago, the Ezek platform announced that its parent company, Starvision Entertainment Ltd., had completed its seed round of financing.

Industry insiders pointed out that the NFT project sale has attracted much attention, largely due to the traffic brought by Jay Chou's star halo. At present, many entertainment stars are actively grasping the opportunities and dividends contained in the next generation of the Internet and future digital life.

It is understood that PHANTACi is a fashion brand co-founded by Jay Chou and Ric Chiang in 2006. Among them, Phanta Bear with star-eyed little bear is the core IP of the brand.

Source: Ezek official website

This is not Jay Chou's first time to enter the NFT market. In October 2021, Vincent Fang collaborated with art agency Soka Art to launch a limited edition Vincent Fang x Jay Chou joint "Punk Cat Sting" (Blue and White Porcelain) doll, which came with an NFT anti-counterfeiting certification.

Source: Soka Art Official WeChat Account

NFT value surges

Since 2021, the NFT market has experienced explosive growth. NFT stands for Non Fungible Token, which is indivisible, irreplaceable, and unique. It is a concept derived from blockchain. When combined with artworks, it can give artworks or other things a unique identifier. By marking the user's ownership of a specific asset through blockchain, NFT can become a recognized tradable entity for this specific asset.

Since the second half of 2020, NFT trading has surged. As of early December 2021, the cumulative transaction volume of OpenSea, the world's leading NFT trading platform, in 2021 reached US$12.91 billion.

Domestic Internet giants are not far behind. In June 2021, Alibaba launched Ant Chain Fans, an NFT trading platform on its self-developed alliance chain "Ant Chain". In August 2021, Tencent launched Huanhe APP, an NFT trading platform on its self-developed alliance chain "Zhixin Chain". The two Internet giants' layout of NFT is mainly limited to the primary trading market of digital collections.

"The important feature of NFT is its non-homogeneity, so it is naturally suitable for non-standardized commodities." Yu Jianing, executive director of the Metaverse Industry Committee of the China Mobile Communications Association, said that the main applications of NFT are currently concentrated in the fields of artworks, collectibles, game props, metaverse resources, etc. that are native to the digital world, but in the future NFT can become a bridge connecting real-world assets and digital world assets, mapping real-world assets on the blockchain through NFT.

A research report by GF Securities pointed out that NFT has the dual value of virtual currency + asset certificate. At the same time, the liquidity and traceability of NFT give assets incremental value.

Be aware of speculative risks

As an unregulated virtual asset, NFT has also spawned some speculative hype. Recently, there have been more and more high-priced NFT projects that the outside world does not understand: a pair of virtual sneakers of the same style as Musk sold for $110,000, a rainbow cat animated picture sold for $560,000, and there is a pixel avatar for sale for up to $91.56 million.

The research report of Ouyi Research Institute pointed out that the current NFT market is still in its early stages, with many irregular and opaque operations, lack of unified valuation standards and fair pricing systems. The recent popularity of the concept has also attracted the influx of some speculative teams. They seize the fear of missing out on investors and use various packaging and hype techniques to attract users to enter the market, which will undoubtedly amplify market risks and is not conducive to the healthy development of the NFT market.

Industry insiders said that because the concept of NFT is still relatively advanced and the business model is not very clear, it faces policy or regulatory risks due to the imperfect relevant legal system, as well as unpredictable development risks in the future.

Ben Nolan, founder of Cryptovoxels, said that there may be a crypto "winter" in the next few months, and the NFT craze may burst and then collapse completely. It would be very unwise for investors to enter the trading market as a way to invest or make money.

Editor: Zhang Nan Cao Shuai