How to value your NBA Top Shot NFTs?
NBA Top Shot is an online marketplace where sports fans are given the opportunity to buy, sell and trade NBA moments, which are packaged highlight clips issued as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, that operate like trading cards. Therefore, each Top Shot features a moment from basketball history, in the form of a short video clip. Besides, collecting these video highlights of basketball players reached mainstream audiences through media attention.
Under 6 months after being released, NBA Top Shots has achieved an incredible peak. It has quickly attracted buyers gathering plenty of attention with some record-breaking sales (some collectibles being sold for over $100,000). With 40 million dollars in sales, NBA Top Shot has been the biggest NFT project on the market in January. By February 2020, NBA Top Shot has become the largest NFT market by sales as it generated over $50M in total marketplace transactions. Since then, NBA Top Shot all time trading volume reached $624.32M with over 6.9M of total number of sales. Furthermore, users number by unique active wallets have been steadily growing as the collection expands, and new memorable moments are being added as NFTs. This resulted in a total of more than 193,000 unique active wallets at the end of june.
Table of contents
NBA and Dapper Lab join forces to form a powerful partnership
Consider NBA Top Shot collectibles value
Stardom level of the player
Highlight Serial number and Series impact
The price range differs for each tier
Trading set variety
NBA Top Shot Features
Challenges and Rewards system
Collector score purpose
NBA Top Shot Hardcourt
Closing thoughts
NBA and Dapper Lab join forces to form a powerful partnership
The N.B.A. has a history of being one of the most innovative leagues in finding ways to make money. Hence, NBA Top Shot intends to bring basketball to the blockchain. In a joint venture that began in July of 2019 between the National Basketball Association, the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs have joined forces to create NBA Top Shot, a "revolutionary new experience in which jaw-dropping plays and unforgettable highlights become collectibles that you can own forever”, says Dapper Labs Chief Executive Officer Roham Gharegozlou.
The Top Shot cards are stored on the Flow blockchain, which was built by Dapper Labs, also known as the team behind the early NFT phenomenon CryptoKitties. As the Top Shot Moments are on the blockchain, it makes it possible for people to own and exchange them as if they were trading cards. According to Dapper Labs, the company is working with the NBA to produce the viral trend. Furthermore, Dapper Labs styles itself to use the power of gaming to deliver blockchain-based experiences involving real-world-ready digital collectibles.
Together, Dapper and the league generate revenue from the sale of digital Moments, which are assigned serial numbers and released in occasional "drops" attracting thousands of people looking for a chance to purchase digital packs of Moments. Dapper and the N.B.A. also share a 5% cut of the profits when a Moment is resold. Each highlight is placed into digital packs, just like regular trading cards, and sold on the official NBA Top Shot website for prices ranging from $9 to $230.
Consider NBA Top Shot collectibles value
The valuation of these NFT highlights is a delicate matter that involves a wide range of factors, including the quality of highlight, the stardom level of the player and the exclusiveness of the card.
Stardom level of the player
First of all, since the NBA games belong to the events that are constantly followed and enjoyed by thousands of people, the popularity of the player is an important element in determining the price of an NBA Top Shot collectible. For instance, the top three players to watch in 2021 are LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant. No surprise, all of these players are also in top positions for the most valuable listings on NBA Top Shot. LeBron James’ highlight, where he emulates a famous Kobe Bryant dunk, was sold for $387,600. This highlight is a dunk he had on a fast-break against the Houston Rockets at Staples Center in February of last season. While the highlight of Giannis Antetokounmpo was priced at $74,000 and Kevin Durant’s worth $69,999.
More generally two factors must be considered: 1) the best performing basketball players by average points per game; 2) the most prospective young players to look for. Most recently a Nikola Jokić card was purchased for $18,000. Jokić is performing strongly in the 2020-2021 season, with strong expectations for numerous MVP awards before the end of the season.
Highlight Serial number and Series impact
Within each pack, each card has its own serial number and these can cause prices to vary wildly. In fact, certain numbers, such as #1, other lower serials, the player’s jersey number, and the “last mint” (or the final number in the edition, ex. #3,999/3,999) are traded at higher prices.
For example, for a Jayson Tatum jump shot, the lowest ask is $52; the highest sale, for serial #5206, $28,000. The LeBron James’ dunk mentioned above counts only 59 of that particular highlight, and this specific one serial numbered 3/59. Another LeBron James’ highlight with the #1 serial number was sold for $71,455, while #47 for $48,000, or less than half. This is a considerable discrepancy for the same card — to be taken into account when reselling the cards.
Additionally, NBA Top Shot provides two types of series : Series 1 indicates the time scale between October 2013 – October 2020; Series 2 indicates December 2020 – till now. Series 3 is set to begin when new Moments are minted from the 2021-2022 season.Taking an example of two LeBron James highlights explained further. The floor price for the release of Series 1 was $60,000 while series 2 could be bought for $29,000.
The price range differs for each tier
Similar to trading cards, there are multiple cards for each moment. Only a scarce number of Top Shot Moments are released. There are four different tiers: common, rare, legendary, and ultimate. Currently only common, rare, and legendary tiers are available on the platform. The common tier includes packs that have 10,000 cards or more. The rare tier has packs of 150-4,999 cards and the legendary tier limits them to 25-499 cards. If looking into LeBron James highlights, the floor price of Common and Rare tier moments are worth $2,150 and $5,685. Whereas the legendary tier value starts from $48,999.
Trading set variety
There are multiple trading sets which are classified by tiers as moments. Some sets are referred to by their abbreviated names: SS – the Common Seeing Stars set that features a cast of All-Star players from the 2020-2021 season ; ASG – the Rare All-Star Game set that features Moments from the 2021 All-Star Game; RS – the Rare Rising Stars set that features the league’s rising generation of young players, including rookies from the 2020-2021 season etc.
Certain legendary sets have a particular name assigned to them : Cosmic, an OG Top Shot set, and Holo, the core Legendary set. Holo MMXX was the Series 1 version of the Holo set, the first Legendary set ever minted. Each Moment is minted to only 50 and rewards to 25, which makes it one of the most exclusive sets in all of Top Shot. Holo Icon was the Series 2 version of the Holo core set, with each Moment minted to 99. For Set Holo MMXX (Series 1) the price ranges between $30,000 to $50,000.
Cosmic is a Series 1 set that was available only to the Top Shot “fan panel and early adopters.” The set contained one Moment from each of the 30 NBA teams, including LeBron James and rookies Zion Williamson and Ja Morant, with each only minted to 49. There are no plans for another Cosmic set to ever be created — making every Moment from this set a highly valuable collector’s item.
In addition, every once in a while, they debut a coveted new Limited Edition Set. These Moments celebrate pivotal NBA events and enduring hoops themes like Top Shot rookie debuts, game-winning daggers, and unforgettable circus shots. Limited Edition means that no copies of that Moment will be minted in the future. The total number of copies displayed under each Limited Edition Moment is guaranteed to stay the same. Limited Edition pack drops are announced to the community at least eight hours in advance.
NBA Top Shot Features
NBA Top Shot allows users to participate in challenges, create custom sets and showcase their collections. It has also implemented a system for rewarding long-term collectors.
Challenges and Rewards system
Challenges are a way for NBA Top Shot to assist collectors in determining what new collectibles are available in a set while rewarding those collectors who have and maintain a complete set as new Moments drop. In fact, a challenge is launched with most new drops. It challenges collectors to gather one of each of a group of newly available Moments and hold on to them until the challenge timer runs its course. After completing the challenge, the collector will receive a special Moment in return. These Moments will never be available in packs and will almost certainly be more scarce than other Moments in the same set.
In a challenge, users are tasked with collecting a number of specific types of Moments within a given time frame. Typically,between 9 and 14 Moments need to be collected over the course of one to three weeks to complete the challenge. Once all the required Moments have been collected, the task is simple: hold on to those Moments until the challenge countdown timer expires.
As soon a challenge timer expires, it will be determined which accounts meet all the requirements of the challenge. The complete list of everyone who is eligible for the challenge reward is then randomized, and the challenge reward is then minted and distributed in that random order. The rewards will almost always be the rarest collectibles of the set.
Collector score purpose
Collector Score is a point value sum of the Moments in the collection that users own.In other words, it is the system which Top Shot is using to evaluate the strength of a collection. Each Moment in collection, depending on its tier, Series and whether or not that Moment was a Challenge Reward, will contribute a set amount of points toward collectors' Collector Score.
The purpose of this Collector Score is related to the pack drop. As packs remain in extremely high demand, Collector Score has become the best driver to ensure most active collectors have access to the most exclusive pack drops, while incentivizing newer collectors to grow their collections as a path to gaining access to exclusive pack drops.
Collector Score is updated daily on each collector’s profile. The current Collector Score is calculated as follows:
Series 1 Moments:
Common (Base Set):25 points
Common (Non-Base Set): 40 points
Rare: 100 points
Legendary: 2000 points
Series 1 Challenge Rewards:
Common (Base Set only): 37 points
Common (Non-Base Set): 60 points
Rare: 150 points
Legendary: 3,000 points
Series 2 Moments:
Common (Base Set only): 12 points
Common (Promo*): 10 points
Common (Non-Base Set): 20 points
Rare: 80 points
Legendary: 1,000 points
Series 2 Challenge Rewards:
Common (Base Set only): 18 points
Common (Promo) Challenge Reward: 15 points
Common (Non-Base Set) Challenge Reward: 30 points
Rare: 120 points
Legendary: 1,500 points
NBA Top Shot Hardcourt
Dapper Labs is currently working on developing a more immersive experience within Top Shot, named "Hardcourt." As Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, mentioned in an early October interview, "it's a 3D game where you control players on a basketball court."
He explained that once a user has put together their team of desired players for the game, they could then use the Top Shop Moments they own to enhance their players’ abilities. Therefore, the Hardcourt feature allows users to bring and use their collection to supercharge their teams. In fact, it allows you to play against friends and other competitors to prove that you are the GOAT.
By adding this immersive interface to the platform, Dapper Labs expects to attract more mainstream users that have largely stayed away from the NFT-enabled gaming world. Hardcourt is undergoing internal testing and is expected to be released late in the fourth quarter; more information will be available soon.
Closing thoughts
The platform has shown an amazing potential generating an incredible number of sales for NFT collectible Moments. In addition, NBA Top Shot has shown some record breaking sales. The NBA Top Shot prompts discussions about new Moment rarity, new pack launches, and also challenges users need to complete in order to obtain even more Moments. All this promises to increase interest in the NBA Top Shot by gathering the core flow around it and thus increasing the value of collectibles. Basically, the platform cannot maintain its item supply being a victim of its own success, and furthermore there is a lot of talk about NBA Topshot Hardcourt.
Top Shot has seen a huge leap in popularity in an extremely small amount of time, especially in recent weeks. Further updates to NBA Top Shot should continue to stimulate market sales. Therefore, the platform takes the traditional collectible into a modern, global era.