This is the intro video for Tony's Last Trick Ever NFT drop. The drop is happening as a write this, it started half an hour ago. Working with Draft Kings and Autograph, they are dropping 16,600 NFT's, each a digital "container" which can be opened to find out what specific NFT buyers got, on 12/21/2021. Just for the record, that's a $664,000 NFT drop, providing they all sell, and they should. Not a bad afternoon's work. To the best of my knowledge, this is only the second big NFT drop in action sports.
If you have started checking out this blog again, since I've come back to it, then you know I've been learning about these "NFT things." On the surface, or to most people my age and older, they sound absurd. "OK, so let me get this straight, people are paying $3 million in crypto for a jpeg file of a funny looking ape, which doesn't even exist in the physical world?" Yep. That's what's happening, on the high end of the spectrum, anyhow.
OK, very few people are paying millions of $ (actually Ether usually, or some crypto), but tens of thousands of people are paying $40-$2,000 worth of crypto for either "digital collectibles," or digital files of someone's artwork, as well as gaming items. Yes, that's nuts, in a sense. But paying $100,000 for a tricked out 1964 Chevy Malibu is also nuts, and people are doing that, too. People have been paying $1 for songs on iTunes for 20 years now, and those don't exist in the real world. Gamers have been paying for cool weapons, added features, to skip missions, level up, or to get "skins" in games for years now, as well. And now most people stream movies and TV shows, we don't own the DVD's or VHS tapes. So part of our whole technological "progress" in the last 25 years is buying shit that doesn't physically exist. Most people do that at some level already.
NFT's, aka Non Fungible Tokens, are digital files tied to a blockchain transaction, which can prove one digital file is the "only one," or one of a series. Among many other uses, NFT's work really well to sell digital collectibles, and for artists to sell a digital version of a piece of art, whether it's digital art or physical art.
Over the last 3-4 weeks, I've learned the basics of NFT technology, and realized, "shit, this is for real, and it's going to be around for a while" (unless us humans start World War III or something stupid like that). Then I realized that there's an absurd amount of money being paid for some of these things. Crypto wealth is not the whole point, but it beats doing a drawing that takes 45 hours, and then shipping the original to someone for $150 plus shipping costs. That's what I've been doing for 5 years. Fun, but very unprofitable. Also, NFT's allow artists and creators to program a royalty payment in the transaction, because of smart contract technology. So if a piece does sell for a crazy price down the road, the artist gets a cut. That's real cool, from a creative person's perspective.
The next thing I realized in my intense research is that only a tiny part of the overall population is into NFT's right now. But this technology is growing and evolving at light speed, and new uses and ideas are popping up all the time. This is opening up new markets. NFT's will be something virtually everyone deals with in 2-4 years, maybe sooner. So for all those reasons, I'm diving deep into this world. I've already created my first two NFT's, both at really high prices, just to learn the basics, and get a handle on the process. I have several more ideas stacking up in my head already.
Back to Tony Hawk. He's the biggest name, to average people, in the action sports world. You can argue, but nearly everyone knows of Tony at this point. Tony has always been a gadget guy, and an early adopter trying out new tech. He's also super smart, a good businessman, and has been into buying Bitcoin for "about ten years" according to an interview from last spring. The price chart I found goes back to 2014, when it was $327 per Bitcoin. Ten years ago, it was a lot cheaper. So whatever Tony bought back then, if he kept some, has made a serious return on his money. It's $47,500+ per Bitcoin now.
All that NFT talk out of the way, I think Tony's idea of retiring 5 tricks, and getting good video of the last time he pulls each them, then working with Autograph and Draft Kings to make it a cool NFT drop, is a cool idea. On the business end, they all make a good chunk of money. For Tony, he can say, "I'm not wrecking myself trying varial 540's or frontside Cabs anymore." For collectors, I think his NFT's will hold up better than some others, like Simone Biles's NFT's, over time. But it will take years to see on that.
I'm writing this post just getting word out that Tony Hawk, someone everyone from the Old School Action Sports world actually knows, or knows of, is doing a cool NFT project. I hope that will get some other action sport people looking at this technology, and looking for good, solid, legit ways to put it to use. Like using NFT's to fund a documentary or a new video project, or maybe as a fundraiser for someone after a serious injury, or just to make some decent living money as an artist. I think there are a ton of really good uses for NFT's, as well as the shady uses some people are trying. Action sports people are a creative bunch, and I think once the basic idea of NFT's seeps into action sports culture, I think we'll see a bunch of cool NFT's come out, a part of many amazing projects. That's my hope, anyhow.
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