NBA Top Shot Is The Future
(Photo via theathletic)
NBA Top Shot is taking the internet by storm. The brand new website allows users to collect digital “moments,” essentially highlight clips, combining the idea of sports cards and cryptocurrency into one. The platform creates uniquely coded video highlights via blockchain where you can buy, sell and trade them on a virtual marketplace. In other words: it’s the future.
Like most people, when I first saw Top Shot on my Twitter timeline I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of. Of course, that was until I did my due diligence. I’m all in. I know what you might be thinking: “Why would you want to spend money on a highlight clip you can watch on YouTube?”
From a personal standpoint I would tell you I’m buying in simply because I think it’s a cool and unique concept compared to traditional collectables like cardboard sports cards. From an investment standpoint these things are actually worth a ton of money, as hard as that may be to believe.
There is a reason for the value behind these “moments.” Each unique moment, or Non-Fungible Token in nerd terminology, is produced through a blockchain that marks each original copy with a corresponding serial number. Think about it like paintings: If there are only 500 original copies of a famous artist painting, each copy is likely to have value given its rarity in the world, but the first one ever made would be the most valuable and most rare in the world. Each person who owns that painting knows their artwork is unique to the world and no one else can ever own the exact same thing. The same applies with Top Shot moments.
Each moment is released by Top Shot in series and sets so that users have the opportunity to purchase them via packs -- essentially the digital version of a pack of sports cards. The pack prices range from $9 to $230 depending on the rarity of the content included, but they are only sold in limited quantities during a release. For example, a series two set 20 base pack came out last week and over 200,000 people, including myself, were waiting in a queue trying to be one of the lucky bastards that snagged one of the 10,000 available packs.
Each unique moment that releases in packs is produced in a varied, limited quantity. For example, the most common moments are limited to 15,000 copies while some of the most rare only have 49 in existence. Don’t even get me started on how ridiculous the prices for the most rare moments are…
Here is an example of one of the most rare collectables on the platform:
$3,800 for a video highlight of LeBron James shitting on the Kings may seem like a lot, but notice this tweet was back in September of 2020. Fast forward to February of 2021 and a LeBron James legendary moment such as the one above was recently sold for $125,000.
As with any collectable, the more rare the moment you own, the more valuable it is. Sometimes the value can be determined by the serial number as well as the moment’s uniqueness itself. For example, if you own a common moment(out of 15,000) the lower the serial number you own the better. Of course there are some variables in the mix such as the serial number matching the player’s jersey number, but in general that is how the pricing works.
There isn’t a great way to explain this in simple terms. I hardly know what the hell I am talking about myself, so I hope my simple-minded brain was able to properly explain how the next big thing in sports collectables works. I say all this yet I’m still lobbing half my bank account into some series 1 moments.
The NBA Top Shot website is still in beta, and with the recent popularity and spike in new users there have been an absurd amount of technical issues. Multiple pack releases have been delayed and hundreds of users have experienced troubleshooting when depositing money or trying to purchase a moment. On top of that, the marketplace gets shut down at least once a day for maintenance for god knows why.
I realize that this is a new platform and everything is still in early stages, but if Top Shot wants any chance of becoming top dogs of the Non-Fungible Token world they better hire some new developers as soon as possible. NFTs and Top Shot are headed to the moon.
If you choose to hop on the NBA Top Shot bandwagon, good for you. If you choose to stay away and save your money, I’ll call you from the yacht I’m going to buy with my massive ROI.