BEIJING (Xinhua): As the Beijing Winter Olympics wraps up, the craze for acquiring a Bing Dwen Dwen, the panda mascot for the games, has persisted, now expanding into the digital art market supported by blockchain technology.
On Friday (Feb 18), a San Francisco-based mobile-game company called nWayPlay rolled out its second batch of 200 Legendary Box packages containing the digital pins to several non-fungible tokens featuring images of the mascot. The panda-themed NFTs are authorised by the International Olympics Committee.
The NFTs are non-interchangeable units of data stored on a blockchain to offer public certificates of authenticity or ownership of digital artworks. The blockchain technology features an immutable data record that can be used and shared within a decentralized and publicly accessible network.
Each Legendary Box is officially priced US$349, much more expensive than a stuffed toy figurine, which sells for about $30. However, the digital pins were sold out only three days after their launch.
"Bing Dwen Dwen is a panda, an emblematic animal in China, clothed in a full body suit of ice... symbolizes the physical and mental power of Olympians," reads the description.
"I missed out on the Beijing Epic box drop, so I'm excited to get a chance at a Legendary box," @TimMount tweeted.
According to the nWayPlay online marketplace, a bidder on Friday paid $996 for a Short Track Speed Skating variant NFT.
On Feb 12, nWayPlay tested the water by dropping its first batch of 500 pieces, which was named Epic Box and priced at $99s. They sold out immediately, with one bidder paying $1,888s, according to the trading record.
The mania for the winter-sports-equipped mascot in digital form came amid a frenzy of shopping for the physical version, with aficionados forming long queues for hours in front of authorised stores in China.
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