Jay Chou and Edison Chen NFTs garner massive interest

Plenty of celebrities in Hong Kong and Asia are rolling out their NFT projects in recent weeks. According to NFT online marketplace OpenSea, the NFT projects of Taiwanese singer Jay Chou and Hong Kong actor Edison Chen are popular on the platform, with Chou's NFT even topping the list. 

Chou-backed fashion brand PHANTACi launched PhantaBear, a total of 10,000 NFTs on 1 January. At the time of writing, PhantaBear is the top project on OpenSea by sales volume in the past 24 hours. On 11 January, it was trading at an average price of 5.88 Ethereum (US$18,399) when its average price was still below 1 Ethereum on 1 January. 

Meanwhile, Chen's The Heart Project was ranked 10th by sales volume in the past 24 hours at the time of writing. According to the South China Morning Post, it took the second spot on the marketplace by 24-hour trading volume before. It's also reported that Chen regularly talks to Chou about NFTs. The public can expect collaborative projects to be launched in the future. 

On 3 January, Chou published a post on his Instagram. He wrote, "In 2022, I change the profile picture as the old one was uploaded months ago to feel what Metaverse is." The post gained more than 100,000 reactions at the time of writing. 

The SCMP report also said on 9 January, trading volume on OpenSea reached a record high of US$261 million. Also, OpenSea experienced a sustained surge in API traffic and it had overloaded its systems, resulting in degraded performance and outages.

In addition to Chou and Chen, some Hong Kong based celebrities also rolled out NFT projects. For example, boyband MIRROR's member Ian Chan launches 2,222 NFTs. The first batch was launched in November 2021. 

Actor Shawn Yue also sold an NFT for more than HK$33 million before, according to some media reports. On his Instagram account, he also used an NFT as the profile picture too. 

NFT has been popular lately in Hong Kong. Earlier this month, NFT and blockchain game developer "HolyShxxt!!" is launching a set of generative art collectibles that includes 8,888 special football players’ NFTs. Each "HolyShxxt!!" football players’ NFT is unique and is created by a combination of 15 traits, and over 480 attributes in addition to special functional features such as air jet, wings and other elements that make it more valuable. 

In a release, "HolyShxxt!!" said it believed that a successful NFT initiative should ride on good online community management that creates long term value. Hence, the company is going to launch a play-to-earn football management simulation game for NFT holders, allowing all community members to collaborate and co-create their dream team.

Meanwhile, Yuto Horigome, the athlete to claim the first skateboarding Olympic gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, has also released a non-fungible token (NFT) with FWENCLUB, a new digital and physical collectibles creation platform. The NFT titled “The Golden 22” is a 3D digital sculpture that celebrates a special moment in time for the 22-year old world champion. 

With only one piece available, the NFT is a nod towards Horigome’s commitment to originality. The moment also marks a monumental event for skateboarding – the sport’s debut as an event at the Olympics, at Horigome’s hometown of Tokyo where he learned and honed his craft. The team at FWENCLUB designed the digital sculpture with this significance in mind to showcase skateboarding as not only a sport – but also an art form.

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