NBA Top Shot

One of the questions I hear on crypto is “what can I do with it besides trade it?” And that’s a good question because truth be told, there have not been great use cases for crypto other than storing value, sending value, and speculating.

But that is changing, as I mentioned in this blog post last week.

One thing you can do with crypto is make digital assets scarce. Bitcoin is scarce. There will be only 21mm Bitcoins. And Bitcoin is a digital asset.

So using the same technology, you can make any digital asset scarce.

And that’s a big deal. Ever since media went digital (mp3s, jpegs, movs, etc), media creators have been trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle and largely failing. But if you create a crypto-asset, you can make it scarce.

Our portfolio company Dapper Labs has been working with the NBA and the NBA Players Association over the last year to create digital trading cards that are scarce. These digital playing cards are being made available via a game called NBA Top Shot. NBA Top Shot is invite only right now but if you read on, you will be given an opportunity to get an invite.

I’ve been playing NBA Top Shot for about a month now. I have bought something like 5 or 6 “packs” which contain a bunch of cards. When you buy a pack, you don’t know what cards you will get. Opening them is a lot of fun. Players are posting their pack openings on YouTube. Here is one of those videos:

Here is my collection of cards (sorry for the messed up formatting, I had to shrink my screen to get them all):

As you can see, I have put two of my cards up for sale in the NBA Top Shot marketplace. Like a good Knicks fan, I have to trade KP away. I’m only asking $25 for that card.

There is a lot more coming in this game, but for now the game play is buying, opening, collecting, and trading. And it is a lot of fun.

If you want to check it out, here’s a typeform where you can enter your email address and answer one quick question and then you will get an invite. I encourage you to buy my Joe Harris and KP cards so I can turn around and buy RJ Barrett and Julius Randle in the marketplace.

I encourage everyone to check out NBA Top Shot. For one, it is a lot of fun. And it also reveals something important about crypto and how it can and will change videogames, collectibles, and other sectors by making digital/virtual goods scarce and collectible.