Dapper Labs announced that the NBA Top Shot blockchain app is now available to consumers worldwide. The collectibles platform was launched in closed beta earlier this year, and so far has made direct sales of almost $1 million, excluding the marketplace where users can re-sell items. The company also claims it is the first blockchain-based collectibles app offered in Samsung’s Galaxy store, although it is not yet available in the Android app store.
Developed on Dapper Lab’s Flow blockchain, NBA Top Shot allows users to collect and trade Moments of the game’s season, complete sets of dynamic plays and win challenges. The ability to trade Moments in a peer-to-peer marketplace differentiates the product from competitors. In addition, the digital collectibles can be bought or sold for real money. “We knew that the benefits of blockchain would be obvious to sports fans, they’re already collectors, after all, but to scale to the size of basketball fandom, it had to be on Flow.” said Roham Gharegozlou, Dapper Labs CEO.
NBA Top Shot’s beta success highlights the ever expanding profitable presence of blockchain collectibles in sports. Teams across multiple sports are signing deals and partnerships with blockchain-based companies to enhance the consumer experience, bolster fan engagement, and increase overall profits. Besides Basketball, Dapper Labs has a presence in UFC. Soccer is one of the areas that has attracted the most attention, with leading clubs inking deals with Fantastec, Sorare, Socios and Stryking.
Dapper Labs, the creators of CryptoKitties have been working with NBA on this app for more than a year. Furthermore, over a year ago, the startup raised $11M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Warner Music Group, and Samsung towards the development of Flow, the blockchain platform used in Top Shot. For Flow, it has also partnered with leading video game developer Ubisoft. More recently, top NBA players, Coinbase Ventures, and others have invested in Flow.