"Flipping shoes and flipping hands to do tide play has long been less hot, and now the circle is all speculating in digital collections." Sneaker player Lao Liu introduced.
In September 2019, Supreme 19 FW's seasonal giveaway paratrooper toy was hyped to more than 2,000 yuan in the secondary market, and the news of the shoe circle was exploded, and the limited edition sneakers and trendy play items were hyped wildly, creating countless wealth myths. However, with the regulatory restrictions of "shoes not to be fried" later, the current sneaker tide play market has long lost the fiery scene of the past, and even some are bleak. In addition to occasionally staring at the sale of limited edition sneakers, shoe circle players have turned their eyes to another market - digital collections.
"Show you how profitable this thing is," Lao Liu sent a screenshot of the quotation of the digital collection secondary market, "these pictures, which were originally only a few dollars or even free, can now sell for tens of thousands of dollars, can you believe it?"
Quotation chart of the secondary market of digital collections circulating in the circle of friends
The name NFT has long been spread around the world, and in blockchain applications, it has become a species that is more out of the circle than Bitcoin. While entertainment and sports luxury goods have driven the track, which is now worth more than $17 billion, the concept of digital collections is also on fire.
Under the layout of major domestic tencent, Baidu and other major manufacturers, this concept has risen rapidly, and the secondary market performance of A-share related concepts has been amazing, while in another non-public trading market, a more exaggerated wealth effect has been staged. NFT and digital collection, two seemingly interchangeable terms, have a completely fragmented market and players.
Young people's new dream of getting rich
"Digital collections can earn 70,000 times, can NFTs?" When talking about digital collections and NFTs, Xiao Wang, a post-00s digital collector, asked.
On September 24, 2021, Ant Group said in a statement that after receiving reports from netizens, Ant Chain and Ali Auction joined forces to remove a transaction suspected of online fraud. A user with the ID "Hip-Hop Wizard" posted bidding information about the "Asian Games Torch" on the auction platform. Ant Chain said that the "street dance geeks" attached a detailed map of the digital torch collection to the auction page, confusing the difference between the digital collection and the physical torch, misleading the buyers, and suspected of fraud, so the platform removed the corresponding illegal goods and dealt with the corresponding violations to the users. The Hangzhou Asian Games Torch NFT was limited to 21,000 copies and sold for 39 yuan, but it was hyped to 3 million yuan outside the venue at that time, and the number of onlookers exceeded 15,000.
Asian Games Torch NFT
This limited edition of the Asian Games Torch NFT is exactly what Xiao Wang said was the digital collection that "can earn 70,000 times". Although the deal didn't end up closing, players didn't think so, "If it weren't for the official intervention of the ants, everyone thought it would have been very likely that the deal would have been sold at this price." Xiao Wang said.
The exaggerated 70,000 times did not appear, but the hundreds of times still existed.
As early as June 23, 2021, Alipay's AntChain Fan Grain launched the first digital collection "Dunhuang Feitian and Nine Colored Deer", which was designed and issued by Dunhuang Research Institute at a price of 9.9 yuan + Alipay 10 points. Subsequently, tens of thousands of yuan were fried on idle fish, of which the highest was fried to 1.5 million yuan, but after less than a day, idle fish hastily removed all related products.
The disappearance of the open trading platform has further stimulated the morale of players, players have formed an over-the-counter trading group, the digital collection of "Feitian" has been speculated from thousands to tens of thousands, and different numbers have different bidding prices. "Yesterday I sold 7500, today it is 10,000, making more than 2000 less." A player who made a profit of 750 times has some regrets.
"Dunhuang Flying Sky and Nine Colored Deer" digital collection
"Most digital collections are sold for tens of dollars or even a few dollars, even if the loss is not much, NFT I have learned some, too expensive, I can not afford to lose." 」 Xiao Wang was a little frustrated when he said this. It is true that most NFT projects are now qualified to participate in the pre-sale after obtaining the whitelist qualification to participate in the pre-sale through various methods, and the pre-sale price of about 0.1 ETH (about 2100 yuan) is already very cheap, which is very difficult for the ordinary college student Xiao Wang, who only has a living expense of 2,000 yuan per month. The digital collection is undoubtedly an excellent "NFT equalization" for him, not only to enjoy the fun of buying and collecting digital artworks, but also to invest and manage money at a relatively low cost.
Screenshot of the profitability of the digital collection recently sold by Xiao Wang
Xiao Wang shared a screenshot of the profit of the recently sold digital collection, "Beat a bicycle to become a motorcycle, what if you get rich?" He said it may represent the dream of many young people like him in the circle of sudden wealth.
A new plaything for young people
"If I click on it, I will show that this thing belongs to me", and this "proof" gives her a thrill like collecting real artifacts, which stems from the most primitive possessiveness of mankind, "In a sense, I have owned it through thousands of years, and I have established a connection with it and the ancient civilization, heroic stories, and magnificent history behind it." Speaking of her own digital collection, digital collector Jessica's words are full of irrepressible excitement, which is a digital collection of "Yue Wang Sword" authorized by the Hubei Provincial Museum.
The digital collection of "Yue Wang Sword" launched by Hubei Provincial Museum
And this is just one of the more than 50 pieces she owns, and in her spare time, she will open the digital collection platform and zoom in and out to see the details of the collection. If it is a 3D work, it can also be rotated to view. Through 3D technology, people can see the patterns, gems, and inscriptions on a 3D "Yue King Sword" very closely, "the gap is just that it cannot be touched realistically."
Whale Detective publishes a digital collection of "Zodiac Artifacts"
The release of digital collections, it is not difficult to see that there are many authoritative institutions endorsement and top IP blessings. In the past, CCTV and the CSRC's statutory media "Shanghai Securities News" entered the digital collection, which enhanced consumers' investment confidence. Later, during the Spring Festival, AntChain's digital collection platform Whale Detective joined hands with 24 museums (courtyards) to release 3D digital collections such as "Tiger Cultural Relics", "Zodiac Cultural Relics" and "Treasures of the Town Museum". The Spring Festival and the Winter Olympics have met with double happiness, digital collections as a new form of congratulations have accelerated into the public's vision, the influence has been expanding, and the value of digital collections has begun to be discussed by the public. On January 19, the digital collection reached the tenth place in Baidu's hot search, and then the Baidu index of the digital collection soared. "Just yesterday I went to the lottery to draw Feng Zikai's digital collection, and the IP of this kind of cultural relic is estimated to be difficult to appear on foreign NFTs, right?" Jessica introduces the advantages of the domestic digital collection.
Baidu Index keyword "digital collection" search trend
When it comes to asset rights confirmation, NFTs are deployed on ethereum and other public chains, which has the advantage of decentralization. The blockchain is a distributed ledger, all data is open and transparent, once written into the block can not be modified, so the individual's NFT assets are guaranteed in terms of confirmation of rights. The vast majority of domestic digital collection platforms such as Whale Detective (Ant Chain) and Phantom Core (Zhixin Chain) use alliance chain technology, which treats a small number of participants with equal power as validators, rather than an open system like a public chain, allowing anyone to verify blocks. The disadvantages of the consortium chain are obvious, the trading rules and asset ownership are not actually controlled by the user, but by these digital collection platforms.
"Whether it is a public chain, an alliance chain or a private chain, with so many authoritative institutions endorsing it, big factories can't run like some NFT projects." Jessica says most investors in the digital collection, like her, don't care whether the digital collection really belongs to them or the platform in the end. Backed by large platforms and authorities, they prefer to believe that digital collections are safer than NFT projects that sometimes have scam problems.
This new market has been created by a large consumer base, and Rhythm BlockBeats has found in the community that the release of new projects for digital collections has been counted by the hour. On April 1 alone, 33 new digital collections were released, with unit prices ranging from $100,000 to $30,000. Some platforms have even made detailed timelines for new products, with recommended indexes attached. The set of ways to play stocks and shoes is reproduced in the digital collection.
Source: Forty views
A market where NFTs are cut off from digital collections
"It's easy to grab a digital collection, and I taught my parents to grab it with me, but until now I haven't studied how to buy NFT." Kevin of '90 seems to have some complaints.
Compared to digital collections, the threshold for NFTs is too high. Participating in NFTs requires a lot of relevant knowledge: learning the concepts of wallets, private keys, addresses, whitelists, mints, etc., but also being able to scientifically access the Internet, transfer money, distinguishing between various public chains, and beingware of various scams and phishing links in Crypto World, and even English is one of the important reasons for discouraging many investors.
The domestic digital collection platform is simple to operate
Taking a domestic digital collection platform as an example, it only takes three steps to participate in a digital collection sale: enter the website, click on the lottery, and get eligible payment. For many digital collectors, digital collections give them a more accessible collection opportunity, and the cost of learning to buy NFTs is too high.
Information about the sale of digital collections on a sneaker information platform
"Digital collections are basically paid for by young people." According to Kevin, in the digital collection exchange group he joined, it is rare to see anyone over the age of 35, and more than half of them are post-95s. Talking about the reason why young people are so enthusiastic about digital collections, Kevin said that some of them use this as a way of financial management, and these people have also experienced "flipping shoes" and "flipping hands", and now the new outlet is digital collection. At present, many sneaker information platforms have also added digital collection interfaces, in addition to monitoring the sale of sneakers and other sales, various digital collection platforms are also included in their monitoring lists.
The major digital collection platforms have the advantage of simple operation, which lowers the threshold for new players who have just joined the digital collection market, and the entry of some trend information platforms allows players to keep abreast of the sale information of digital collections, which is also fueling the hot momentum of this market.
Chains of contempt and regulation of digital collections
"You're breaking the law with NFTs, aren't you?" Alex, who has just been exposed to the digital collection for a month, asks.
This question may seem ridiculous at first glance, but it is indeed the doubt of many digital collectors, and it is precisely the "sword of Damocles" in the hearts of many NFT practitioners.
Domestic supervision of virtual currencies has always been very strict. As early as last year, 11 departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, announced that virtual currency "mining" activities would be officially listed as a phased-out industry; at the same time, 10 departments, including the central bank, made it clear that virtual currencies do not have the same legal status as legal tender, and related business activities are illegal financial activities. Although NFTs are not equivalent to virtual currencies, given that NFTs and homogeneous tokens apply a similar blockchain technology base, and NFTs have risks such as speculation and financial productization, with the promotion and popularity of NFT applications, the minting, issuance, sales and circulation of NFTs in the future may have regulatory intervention.
The development path of digital collections in China follows a different business model from overseas markets, exploring and establishing Chinese rules and standards in terms of distribution, sales and circulation. First, domestic mainstream digital collection platforms such as Whale Detective emphasize that digital collections are supported by the actual value of specific artworks and do not have any monetary attributes such as payment functions. Second, unlike overseas use virtual currency as the price and transaction currency, domestic digital collections use RMB as the price and transaction currency, which largely ensures the stability of the value of digital collections. Third, the domestic mainstream platforms are all structured on the alliance chain, blockchain technology providers can design their use and transaction rules, and the digital collections issued on the platform can be non-transferable from the source design (that is, the secondary trading market is not opened for the time being), so that the domestic digital collections can be truly "de-monetized".
From the perspective of actual results, the strict "limited increase" has reduced the occurrence of speculation to a certain extent, but it has also triggered a large number of over-the-counter trading chaos. The gray and black industry is secretly emerging, and over-the-counter transactions have become a high incidence of fraud, and fraud similar to "false guarantors" occurs from time to time, and the amount of fraud ranges from hundreds of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. In view of the problems such as whale detectives having a 180-day transfer period, some players also sell in advance to make a profit by drafting a transaction contract, and then transfer the goods after lifting the transfer restrictions. But whether such a contract really has legal effect is a big question mark, "the contract is based on the law." Although the contract will stipulate a three-fold compensation clause, the platform does not support resale, has no legal effect, and everything is waste paper."
In response, Whale Detective customer service responded: "Whale Detective does not support any form of resale, please beware of fraud risks."
NFTs are quite similar to the wealth effects created by digital collections, but in fact they are two fragmented markets, and for various reasons, they are riddled with chains of prejudice and contempt. Admittedly, Lao Liu, Xiao Wang, Kevin, Jessica, and Alex are a group of speculators, a group of young people with a strong curiosity about new things. After 180 days, the transfer will be officially released, and what will happen is unpredictable – but what can be known is that this rush to buy a digital collection brings them not only monetary profits, but more importantly, the simple and original pleasure that the collection brings them – like philately.
In this article, Lao Liu, Xiao Wang, Kevin, Jessica, and Alex are pseudonyms.
*Rhythm BlockBeats reminds investors to guard against chasing high risks, and the views expressed in this article do not constitute any investment advice.
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