NFT is gradually creating a prominent place for itself in football as more football superstars are getting involved in the fast-rising form of digital trading. Recently Borussia Dortmund super striker, Erling Haaland NFT trading-card version of him was sold for a record £500,000.
This means that the 21-year-old Norwich striker has the most valuable NFT trading card in football. Before now, the trading card of Manchester United forward, Cristiano Ronaldo was the most valuable in football. The 36-year-old Portuguese football icon made the record when the digital version of him was sold for £300,000.
The fact that a trader bid and paid a whopping £500,000 to own the digital version of Erling Haaland goes a long way to prove that the Norwegian footballer is becoming one of the most famous footballers in the world.
No wonder Haaland is seen as one of the youngsters that might replace aging Paris Saint Germain forward, Lionel Messi and his career rival Cristiano Ronaldo when they finally hang their boots.
Recall that Haaland has attracted interest from European heavyweights like FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, and Manchester United due to how prolific he has been so far in his career.
His consistency has made him one of the best footballers in the world even though he has not spent more than three seasons at the top of European football.
All things being equal, Erling Haaland is expected to leave Borussia Dortmund for one of the numerous suitors seeking his services. But such a club must pay for his release clause which is worth over £63 million.
How Erling Haaland NFT trading-card version of him was sold for a record £500,000
The Erling Haaland NFT trading-card version of him was released for sale in January 2022. The bidding process dragged for hours before Zima Blue who is under Sorare collector emerged as the winner of the bid.
Zima Blue which is the username on the NFT trading card paid 255.100 Ethereum – which is a cryptocurrency used to trade the cards. Based on the sale, Erling Haaland NFT Card has joined the list of most valuable NFT cards in sports.
As it stands, the one-off Erling Haaland NFT card can be used as part of a digital trading card game in Sorare’s next-gen fantasy football game.
The Sorare’s next-gen fantasy football game is based on real-world matches and players earn points of up to 100 based on their quantifiable positive contributions (goals, assists, etc) and negative actions (red and yellow cards, etc).
What is NFT?
NFT is an acronym for “non-fungible token” which simply signifies a unique digital collectible that is tracked on a blockchain to prove its unique authenticity.
Underlying NFTs data like art, photos, match highlights, 3-D renderings of trophies, and music files are bought and sold for very high prices.
In general, NFT could represent anything found on the internet. Hence, it can be safe to say NFTs are similar to real-life collectibles like trading cards. Each of the cards has qualities that can not be replaced by the same model.
The security on NFTs which makes it impossible for a card to be replaceable by the same model of the card is the “non-fungible” element of NFTs.
This means that only one person can officially own any item that has been digitally authenticated on a blockchain. If such an item is copied or right-clicked and saved by another person, the item will be referred to as a non-official version of the item. This is so because every NFT comes with an underlying code that contains the information of the original owner of the cards.
In football, for instance, most football-related NFTs are created by players, clubs, or leagues that add to the legitimacy of the trading card.
In summary, NFTs can be said to be a form of crypto asset that is part of the Ethereum blockchain. NFTs are bought and sold online, typically with cryptocurrency. One can simply say an NFT is a unique digital token encrypted with an artist’s signature which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.
The origin of NFTs
Writer and podcaster Andrew Steinwold traced the origins of NFTs back to 2012, with the creation of the Colored Coins cryptocurrency. But NFTs didn’t move into the mainstream until five years later when the blockchain game CryptoKitties began selling virtual cats in 2017.
What is an example of NFT?
The Erling Haaland NFT which was sold for a record £500,000 and the Cristiano Ronaldo NFT which was sold for £300,000 are typical examples of NFT.
Top examples of NFT outside football include Beeple’s “Everyday: The First 5000 Days”. This NFT is the first purely NFT digital artwork that was sold at a major auction house. The digital asset was sold for $69 million.
Another renowned NFT is William Shatner’s memorabilia which was a collection of Actor William Shatner’s memorabilia. The memorabilia include the early headshots of the actor, a photo of Shatner hugging Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy, and an X-ray of Shatner’s teeth. The actor sold 125,000 units of the memorabilia in 9 minutes.
More so, Singer-songwriter Grimes released his NFT collection tagged Grimes WarNymph. He sold 10 of the collection for over $5.8 million.
In summary, most NFTs include some kind of digital artwork, such as photos, videos, GIFs, and music. Theoretically, anything digital could be turned into an NFT.
What does NFT mean in crypto?
NFTs and cryptocurrency are similar in some certain degrees but are not the same in operation.
The major relationship between NFTs and Crypto is that you need cryptocurrency to buy NFTs, and both crypto and NFTs use the digital ledger known as the blockchain to show proof of ownership of an asset.
However, NFTs themselves are not a digital currency, as each one is unique. And the difference in value between crypto and the top NFT collections shows that they may be increasingly operating in different markets.
What is the NFTs market?
To participate in the fast-growing NFT market, you have to identify the marketplace that best represents the digital asset you are interested in buying, selling, or creating. After that, you have to consider the type of tokens supported on the marketplace before you dive into it.
After you have located the ideal marketplace for your NFT trading, ensure you fund your blockchain wallet with the right crypto or token required to participate in the site’s activity.
Below are the top three NFT marketplaces:
- OpenSea: OpenSea has all sorts of digital assets available on its platform, and it is free to sign up and browse the extensive offerings. It also supports artists and creators and has an easy-to-use process if you want to create your own NFT (known as “minting”). Just as the name implies, the marketplace supports more than 150 different payment tokens.
- Axie Marketplace: Axie Marketplace is the online shop for the video game Axie Infinity. Axies are mythical creatures that can be bought and trained and then pitted against other players’ Axies to earn rewards. On Axie Marketplace, players can buy new Axies and other items, as NFTs for use within the game. Axie Infinity tokens (called Axie Shards) are built on the Ethereum blockchain. As such, they can be bought and sold on a variety of other NFT marketplaces, as well as on some cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase Global.
- Larva Labs/CryptoPunks
Larva Labs is best known for the viral CryptoPunks NFT project. They were originally given away for free back in 2017, but some CryptoPunks have sold for millions of dollars since then. Larva Labs has other digital art projects going such as Autoglyphs, as well as other Ethereum blockchain-based app development projects.
Larva Labs’ CryptoPunks NFTs are sold out, but they can be bid on and bought from various third-party marketplaces. Nevertheless, Larva Labs’ various projects are worth keeping tabs on — including the Meebits, which can be bid on directly from the company’s built-in marketplace.
Other blockchain-backed marketplaces like Nifty Gateway and Rarible are also ideal marketplaces to trade your NFTs.
How to make money from NFTs
NFTs are sold on marketplaces like the ones mentioned above. For you to sell your NFT, you would need to upload a particular content to your desired marketplace and turn it into NFT. After that, you are expected to wait for buyers just like in the case of uploading a product on Amazon.
In summary, what you are expected to do to get started is to locate an NFT marketplace, mint the NFT, and link your wallet.
Once you have done with the above process, you are expected to list your NFT for sale. Once you list the NFT for sale, the marketplace will calculate the “gas fee” which is an Ethereum blockchain network fee to record the transactions.
Note: to reduce your gas fee, list your product during non-peak hours, depending on the marketplace.
You can also trade NFTs. Selling NFTs is not just for creators. Some entrepreneurs and investors utilize NFTs like stocks and profit by buying and selling them. If you have already purchased a collection of NFTs and don’t need them anymore, you can easily sell them the same way you would if you were to create them yourself. The only step you will skip is the minting process.
