NBA Top Shot Overwhelmed by Demand in Record $1M Pack Drop

Over 200,000 collectors waited in line Friday, hoping to buy into Dapper Labs' runaway NBA hit.

AccessTimeIconFeb 26, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. UTC
Updated Aug 19, 2021 at 7:33 a.m. UTC

Presented By Icon

Election 2024 coverage presented by

Stand with crypto

Dapper Labs' booming digital collectibles platform, NBA Top Shot, just completed its most anticipated NFT release yet, selling 10,631 packs of basketball videos hashed to the Flow blockchain for a record $1.05 million in revenue.

The project’s latest pack drop, which at its peak had over 200,000 hopeful collectors waiting in line for what are essentially serialized National Basketball Association highlights, pushes total pack-generated revenue to $7.38 million for the 8-month-old NBA Top Shot, according to data crunched by CoinDesk.

  • Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
    13:18
    Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
  • Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
    05:10
    Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
  • The first video of the year 2024
    04:07
    The first video of the year 2024
  • The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
    40:07
    The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
  • The secondary market for Top Shot pack “moments” is even bigger: Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou said the platform has seen $50 million in transactions in the last 30 days. Some moments featuring top players have resold for six-figure sums.

    “I think we're on track to be the fastest growing marketplace,” Gharegozlou said Friday.

    Top Shot is quickly emerging as a breakthrough in the blockchain collectibles space. Though it has been around since June, the league-licensed project has gone off like a rocket in the past month as players pump the hype – and mainstream collectors pile in.

    Indeed, the site has struggled mightily to keep up with surging demand. 

    Dapper Labs delayed this latest pack drop at least two times and shut off new sign-ins in an attempt to get a handle on back-end operations, ward off bots and keep the site (which is still in beta) rolling relatively smoothly. The firm was only somewhat successful; Friday’s drop experienced delays even after it began.

    NFT full-court press

    There’s no sign the NFT issuer is slowing down anytime soon. Built atop Dapper’s in-house Flow blockchain, the project has blasted into mainstream sports culture in recent weeks with NBA stars and owners like Mark Cuban calling Top Shot’s “moments” the next big thing.

    It has gotten to the point where players all but plead with the public for gifts of the digital sports cards. Other NBA stars invested directly in Dapper Labs in earlier rounds. The startup reportedly raised $250 million at a $2 billion valuation earlier this month.

    NBA Top Shot is leading an entire digital collectible ecosystem in a charge toward the normies. That it lives atop a walled blockchain powered by tokenomics is largely irrelevant to its swelling user base, who, unfazed by the decentralized backend, have signed up in droves. Notably, NBA Top Shot moments are making their first foray out of the Flow garden and onto the OpenSea marketplace among the many Ethereum-based NFTs.

    “The FLOW token is what powers it all, but you don't need to know that in order to play NBA Top shot,” Gharegozlou said during the pack drop livestream. “There's nothing about cryptocurrency. It's about basketball, and the crypto technology is simply what enables the software to exist.”

    Disclosure

    Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information have been updated.

    CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of the Bullish group, which owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish group equity-based compensation. Bullish was incubated by technology investor Block.one.


    Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.