In brief
- NFL All Day will no longer issue new NFTs, though existing collectibles can still be bought and sold via the marketplace.
- Dapper Labs said it signed a new licensing deal with the NFL and will reveal plans closer to the start of the next season.
- All Day marketplace sales volume has picked up as collectors grapple with the news.
Dapper Labs, the firm behind licensed digital sports collectibles platform NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, will no longer create new football collectibles for its licensed NFL platform, it announced on Wednesday.
The decision does not affect existing NFTs on the platform, which can still be bought and sold via the site’s marketplace.
“Today we are stopping primary issuance for our NFL All Day product, and announcing the signing of a new licensing agreement with the NFL,” Dapper Labs CEO and Flow blockchain co-founder Roham Gharegozlou posted on X. “We will share details on this as the season approaches.”
As part of the changes, the firm is committing to two new initiatives for collectors on the platform, including providing them with a “Founding Collector” label and issuing a 5% Dapper balance rebate on purchases—though collectors need to hold the purchased collectible for a year to release the rebate.
“We [Dapper Labs] continue to believe that digital goods with cultural value will be one of the fastest-growing asset classes of the next decade, but building the category correctly requires only moving forward in a way that protects the ownership economy,” said Gharegozlou.
The firm’s formal announcement hit social media around 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening, and earned a rash of criticism from collectors in reply as marketplace offers were still valid throughout the announcement. Some users claimed they’re now saddled with NFTs with minimal value as holders cashed out following the announcement.
“Why were offers still active after this announcement?,” pseudonymous collector RJAnderson85 posted on X, adding that existing offers were made with assumptions that NFL All Day would continue to operate as normal. “I just saw on my phone I spent $400-$500 on worthless moments. Not acceptable,” they added.
Others chimed in similarly, pointing to the fact that many of their outstanding offers were accepted after the announcement thanks to the marketplace staying open.
The announcement has led to a surge in sales over the last two days according to data from CryptoSlam. Sales volume on the platform eclipsed $10,000 in total just one time prior to Wednesday’s announcement. But on Wednesday, volumes reached nearly $32,000, and more than $53,000 has been transacted on Thursday as of this writing.
Furthermore, the count of unique sellers has jumped from less than 100 individuals all of last week to more than 400 sellers on Thursday—a sign that collectors are reacting to the news.
Details on what the platform may look like in the future remain sparse, but the firm said it is “hard at work on the next evolution of NFL digital collectibles.”
A representative for Dapper Labs did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
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