The NFT craze seems to have bitten sports celebrities the most as American Football Quarterback for Kansas City Patrick Mahomes sold his NFT collection in an auction garnering $3.7 million in sales. Mahomes NFT sale comes just a week after another NFL star Rob Gronkowski’s NFT collection was sold for $1.75 million.
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The Kansas City quarterback’s NFT collection is comprised of digital portrait converted to an NFT that comes with a 55” digital frame for displaying the art, along with a physically signed Mahomes jersey and jewel-encrusted helmet. The bidding went on for several days before the final bid coming late Friday who would hold rights to the original art.
Mahomes total collection was auctioned by MarketPlace while Gronkowski’s NFT was sold by OpenSea. While the overall valuation of Mahomes Collection brought in a higher bid, however, Gronkowski’s card brought in the highest bid for a single item i.e the digital card that went for $433,000.
The Growing NFT Craze Has Got Artists and Art Collectors Worried
NFTs are nothing new with its public debut coming in 2018 with a similar hype surrounding it, however, it was nothing compared to the ongoing craze around the crypto use case. A digital artist who goes by the name of Beeple recently sold his artwork for over 69 million dollars, bringing the NFT mania to the mainstream media. However, the recent craze around NFT based artworks have got many artists and art collectors worried.
The primary concern of art collectors is the possible chances of art theft via hacking which could lead to copyright thefts. The other concern raised by these artists is that most of the sales don’t come with legal rights. Art collectors are also worried that the growing hype around NFTs would bring in regulatory scrutiny which might bring the value of NFT art in the market.
