Trading Cards, NFTs, and Crypto

I have written about our portfolio company Dapper‘s NBA Top Shot game here at AVC a few times now. Think of NBA Top Shot as digital trading cards. It is more than that, but that’s a simple way to think about it.

I tweeted this out today:

I spent 3.33 Bitcoin Cash tokens this morning to buy the 13th issued Tyrese Haliburton rookie moment on NBA Top Shot. https://t.co/JWFoe9mxe4? It will be interesting to see which is worth more in five years. Or ten years.

— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) January 21, 2021

I don’t like to sell crypto, but I do like to trade crypto for crypto. I got all of our Ethereum by swapping Bitcoin for it a few years ago, for example.

NFTs (non fungible tokens) are a different kind of crypto asset. They are digital assets like art, trading cards, etc that are issued on a blockchain and as a result are rare, unique, and easily traded.

NFTs, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, can increase and decrease in value over time.

Rookie cards have been traded for as long as there have been physical trading cards. They are a way to speculate on an athlete and their career. This Steph Curry rookie card is listed for $150,000 on eBay right now.

So my purchase of the Tyrese Haliburton moment is a bet that Tyrese is going to have a long and successful NBA career. Hopefully, he will be an all-star someday. That would make my moment increase in value. Will it increase in value more than the 3.33 BCH that I parted with to buy it? Well, that remains to be seen.