NFT platform nWayPlay, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based blockchain developer Animoca Brands, on Thursday dropped and sold out a second batch of NFT digital boxes featuring “Bing Dwen Dwen,” the wildly popular panda mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The officially licensed new collection includes six digital renderings of the mascot performing a variety of winter sports. Only 200 boxes, each containing three pins with unique serial numbers, were available for sale at US$349 each.
Themed merchandise has been a lucrative revenue source during the Olympics, but among the pins and beanies, collectors and investors could now purchase non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, as digital memorabilia steps onto the podium at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Sales of Bing Dwen Dwen NFTs were not available for Chinese mainland buyers due to “licensing restrictions,” according to the nWayPlay website, but some Chinese users have still found ways to buy them, as reported by local media.
The panda mascot NFTs from the original batch, which went on sale on Feb. 11, have already gained handsomely in value. Initially sold at US$99 each, they are currently selling on nWayPlay’s secondary marketplace for US$349 to US$1,188 each.
On nWayPlay’s platform, the highest price fetched for a Bing Dwen Dwen was US$1,888and the lowest was just US$3, according to Forkast’s calculation based on the sales history. The average price of all secondhand deals was US$981, nearly 10 times the original price tag.
The hype over the mascot NFTs comes amid regulatory uncertainty in China. China has not banned NFTsas it has cryptocurrencies. But state media outlets appear to hold conflicting ideas about NFT issuance, with some warning over NFT’s speculative nature but some actually creating their own “digital collectibles.”