- Sports Illustrated magazine covers served as inspiration.
- The Genesis NFTs auctioned on eBay are sold for US dollars, unlike most NFTs.
On Monday, eBay released its first non-fungible token (NFT) drop with a series of tokenized memorabilia starring Canadian hockey player, Wayne Gretsky, a legend in the NHL. Sports Illustrated magazine covers served as inspiration for the animated Gretsky characters in the NFT collection of Gretsky memorabilia. There are a total of 299 green editions, 199 gold editions, 99 platinum editions, and 15 diamond editions.
The collection is currently available for purchase on eBay’s market. Limited-edition levels of gold ($100), platinum ($100), and diamonds ($500) have already sold out. As eBay said, the collection was produced in collaboration with ecologically oriented NFT platform OneOf, which allows different “energy-efficient blockchains” to offer sustainable NFT collections.
Targeting Non-crypto Buyers
Since mid-2021, eBay has allowed NFT listings, but it has not yet incorporated blockchain technology to facilitate the marketplace’s sales. In this official drop, a redemption code will be issued to the user through in-platform messaging or email to redeem their NFT outside of the platform.
On Ethereum scaling platform Polygon, NFTs were produced and can be traded on OneOf’s secondary market. Only three users have posted platinum-tiered tokens at a floor price of $199 on OneOf, while one user has offered a gold-tiered NFT at the cost of $69.
NFT technology has been described as revolutionizing the collectibles industry by eBay’s vice president of collectibles, electronics, and homes, Dawn Block, who commented on the decline. The Genesis NFTs auctioned on eBay are sold for US dollars, unlike most NFTs, which are often traded in exchange for other cryptocurrencies—usually Ethereum. Targeting non-crypto buyers must be the strategy behind this move. In addition, the transactions are not made on the chain but instead on eBay’s Web2 platform.
