Digital authentication opens new doors for art, sports collectors

NBA Top Shot is an online platform which allows users to buy and trade videos of basketball highlights. — Dappers Labs via Reuters

NEW YORK: Fans have been flocking by the thousands to the Top Shot online platform to buy short videos of dramatic sequences from professional basketball games, as a new virtual market enjoys astonishing success among collectors, sports fans and art lovers.

To the untrained observer, one video clip showed NBA superstar LeBron James in one of his more spectacular moves; but it lasted no more than a few dozen seconds. On Top Shot, however, it instantly became a collector's item that sold on Monday for an eye-popping US$208,000 (RM843,544).