Three individuals, one from the east, and two from the west, have great commonality – all are at the height of their game, all have proven track records, all are great legends in our time.

One is half the age of the other two, all possessing stellar good looks, extraordinary talent, and millions of devoted fans.

Two of them have issued NFTs – non-fungible tokens.

As at February 2, 2022, the third just announced a new NFT trading and collecting platform. Who are they? Take a guess.

Answers below!

Why are they doing this?

The gamification of NFTs

NFT technology is also used to enhance video games, such as fantasy football, for playing, betting on, collecting, and/or trading the digital players (NFTs).

Sorare, headquartered in France, launched in 2019, is a digital global website that hosts global fantasy virtual football games, digital trading cards, based upon real football clubs’ live performances. To date, Sorare has card licences with 215 global football franchises from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, South America, Japan, North America, UK, Ireland, and elsewhere, plus supported by millions of football fans worldwide.

According to ProductMint, “Sorare makes money by issuing and selling new cards on its platform. Players can then purchase those cards and add them to their existing squads. Further, the football clubs receive a portion of a NFT’s sale value as part of the licensing agreement as well as exposing clubs to new audiences and fans. “

The basic game is free and works like this.

Players create virtual teams of five different collectibles (at least one goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, and forward). Then, teams compete against each other in a league format. The virtual player cards (reminiscent of old baseball/football trading cards) represent non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which can be purchased as a unique token on the Ethereum blockchain, but can be limited in numbers depending upon perceived values of the featured footballer, the club, etc.

Once a player joins a league, individual line-ups for each game day are picked. On game day, all points, which are based on a player’s performance (such as goals and assists), are tallied to determine the winners in a tournament. Prizes are awarded on ranking points in collectibles or cryptocurrency ether, transferred to a winner’s wallet account.

Monetisation of NFT exchanges

What is an NFT? According to a Forbes article, headlined “What you need to know about non-fungible tokens”: “An NFT is a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.”

Money is a medium of exchange, but so are NFTs, similar to, but not real money, stocks, commodities, antiques, art, and trading cards that can become collectors’ items.

NFTs are rapidly gaining enormous popularity among sports, music, art, education, science, other producers, and audiences.

OpenSea is an American company headquartered in NYC and the largest peer-to-peer online marketplace for NFTs, rare digital items and crypto collectibles.

According to OpenSea, NFTs have exciting new properties: they’re unique, provably scarce, tradeable, and useable across multiple applications. Just like physical goods, you can do whatever you want with them! You could throw them in the trash, gift them to a friend across the world, or go sell them on an open marketplace. But unlike physical goods, they're armed with all the programmability of digital goods.

Readers, this trend is not temporary. NFTs are just one reality of many in the way that goods and services are transacted.

OpenSea alone lists more than 80 million NFTs, $2.4 billion transactions in 30 days alone, and $13.3 billion in valuation as at January 5, 2022 and growing!

Identification

Who are these people involved in NFT production?

One of them is a world-famous soccer player and the other an even more famous footballer, the third a musician-songwriter of global renown.

They are:

Erling Braut Haaland, 21, is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a striker for German Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund and the Norway national team. He is considered one of the best strikers in the world.

The Erling Haaland NFT, one of a kind, sold at auction by SorareBot in late January 2022 to Zima Blue for 265.1001 ether ($687,000), the highest ever.

Tom Brady, 44, is a former American football quarterback who just retired after a career in the National Football League for 22 seasons. He spent his first 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, where he was a central contributor to the franchise's dynasty from 2001 to 2019.

The Brady NFT collection of 16,000-plus priced at $80 per, sold out within minutes in early December 2021 reaping an estimated $1.3 million.

Tom Brady’s NFT platform autograph states: “Join the new era of collecting!”

Autograph brings together the most iconic brands and legendary names in sports, entertainment and culture to create unique digital collections and experiences, such as Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, Rob Gronkowski and more.

John Legend, byname of John Roger Stephens, (born December 28, 1978, Springfield, Ohio), is an American singer-songwriter and pianist who achieved success in the early 21st century with his fusion of R&B and soul music. Winner of multiple Grammy awards, Mr Legend was the first African American man to win all four major North American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

OurSong, John Legend’s NFT platform promotes and allows artists to tokenise and sell their work, stating: “Let’s vibe! Easy peasy NFTs. We made creating and buying NFTs super easy. Everyone can now turn stories, music, photography, and any kind of art into NFT trading cards called Vibes. Do it anytime, anywhere!”

Read more on the crypto trend and details in future articles

References

“The Sorare Business Model: How Does Sorare Make Money?” ProductMint,https://tinyurl.com/2jztr4jw

OpenSea: https://opensea.io/about

What is Tom Brady’s latest NFT collection?

Coindesk, https://tinyurl.com/4azrw7bw

Grammy-winner John Legend launches new music and art NFT platform, CoinTelegraph, Keira Wright, https://tinyurl.com/3zj7279b

• Martha Harris Myron is a former qualified international financial planner, the author of The Bermuda Islander Financial Planning Primers, a Google News Contributor since 2016, international financial consultant to the Olderhood Group Bermuda Ltd., promoter of Financial Literacy and financial columnist to The Royal Gazette