Sportspersons to designers, celebs put themselves out in the NFT universe

Amitabh Bachchan recently sold his collection for $966,000 (approximately Rs 7.18 cr)

On November 12, musician A R Rahman turned to Twitter with a question: “I want to release the source track of "Phir Se Ud Chala" from Rockstar (Hamsa) as an NFT. The proceeds will benefit the Indian music community which suffered during the pandemic. What do you think?”. Till the time of going to print, his tweet had garnered over 19,000 “likes” and more than 1,400 retweets.

Now while Rahman is still toying with the idea of an NFT, several Indian celebrities — sportspersons, actors and designers — have already plunged into this new world that sneaked up on us bang in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic (see box). NFT, the acronym for a rather tedious term, non-fungible token, might still be a novelty — even though the first NFT project was in 2015 — but its sales globally exceeded $2 billion during the first quarter of 2021.

On a video call from Dubai, cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, who was among the first Indian celebs to embrace this universe, says, “It is the modern way to keep in touch with fans.”

The former Indian opener’s collection, fittingly titled “Always First” (https://alwaysfirst.io/), is priced between $35 and $500, and can be bought using cryptocurrency, credit or debit cards. On offer is exclusive access to Gavaskar’s interviews, virtual experiences where you can walk into a room that leads to the stands from where you can watch videos of the Little Master taking the crease or meet the man himself.

For the uninitiated, NFTs are unique units of data stored on a blockchain and can be used to represent easily reproducible items such as photos, videos, and audios to establish a proof of ownership. Since each NFT is unique, it acts as a collector’s item, although many people also buy them as speculative investments.

Celebrity designer Manish Malhotra’s NFT collection includes original sketches of some of his couture pieces, a vintage photo of model Lisa Ray and a video clip from a past show.

“With the ongoing digitisation of fashion, our in-house couture films and virtual store on the MM (Manish Malhotra) website, this seemed like the appropriate next step to enter the new industry,” he says. “I partnered with WazirX (Bitcoin and crypto exchange) with FDCI X Lakme Fashion Week to mint my creations. It is an excellent platform for artists, designers, and creators to capitalise on unique assets, engage with and reach a wider audience base.”

An actor with a keen nose for business, Sunny Leone was among the first in Bollywood to announce her collection of NFTs, “Misfitz” (https://sunnyleonenft.com/). It included “a unique piece of artwork created by a Philipino artist,” says Leone, adding, “There are over 100 NFTs with over 1,000 different attributes” in her collection, which starts at .03 Ethereum (that’s about $150). The pre-sale of her collection was a quick sellout and now a public sale will be held this week.

“Daniel (her husband) and I took six months to plan and launch Misfitz and to have the backend up, which is important for a successful NFT,” she says. The backend is the technology part of the process that ensures the minting in the blockchain is correct.

Meanwhile, Gavaskar’s collection also comprises clips of his key cricketing moments and a virtual hall of fame for fans to have an immersive experience. Tickets to this hall of fame — the price is yet to be determined — are being sold as NFTs.

“I’m someone who likes to reply to fan messages with handwritten notes, but often this gets delayed due to me being out of the country or some such,” says Gavaskar. “With NFTs, it is going to be pretty much immediately (through video interactions or a host of other ways), and that’s what sets it apart.”

Not just fans, the virtual hall of fame will also help him relive his cricketing career, Gavaskar adds. “It will take me back in time. Often in this hurly-burly of cricket, it is very difficult to sit back and reflect, and this will give me the opportunity to do so.”

Malhotra agrees, “The NFT freezes your present and allows you to live in the same timeframe.” He gives the example of the vintage Lisa Ray shot “from the archives of my 1990s photoshoot, years before the Manish Malhotra label was launched. Back in those days, Lisa Ray was a prime supermodel, still awed by many in the relevant times. The NFT depicts the beauty of the old days, of the painstaking process of capturing black-and-white negatives.”

Malhotra’s “Illuminous Showstopper”, a custom-made constellation sketch for Kareena Kapoor Khan, which she wore to a red carpet event, got the highest bid and was sold for 3,000 WRX (approximately Rs 2.8 lakh).

With the collectibles space changing so rapidly, many have been left scratching their heads. “This is just the next evolution and it was inevitable in the ever-changing digital world,” says Leone. “So, it doesn’t surprise me.”