Olympics and Government Oppression: NFT News From Around the Industry
The world has witnessed the conclusion of a great sporting event, the Winter Olympics, to which many organizations and companies have dedicated respective NFT collections.
Table of contents:
- IOC created a series of commemorative NFTs.
- Team GB also jumps on the NFT bandwagon.
- NFTs that reveal civil rights violations of the Chinese government.
IOC created a series of commemorative NFTs
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is trying to keep abreast with modern trends regarding fan engagement and the perpetuation of grand events and sporting achievements that took place over the past few decades. Prior to the start of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the IOC launched an exclusive collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on which the sports organization had been working together with nWayPlay since June 2021. nWayPlay is a decentralized marketplace that is closely associated with the reputable video game development studio Animoca Brand. Together, they created the tokenized Olympic Heritage Collection of Olympic Pins that depict numerous memorable events that occurred during all 125 years of existence of this non-governmental sports organization.
The collection includes pictogram, mascot, emblem, and badge pins priced anywhere from a couple to a few hundred USD, depending on tokens’ rarity, and, of course, plenty of pins that are still on sale are dedicated to the latest Olympic Games. Timo Lumme, the chief of television and marketing for the Committee, said with regard to the pins’ release that it offers fans the way to own “a piece of Olympic history.” Before the start of the said games, nWay had also released the play-to-earn game called “Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022” where players can earn small token rewards for playing winter sports simulators. All these products are still available on the nWayPlay platform, though, ironically, they can’t be purchased or accessed by Chinese users due to the total crypto ban imposed by the government last year.
Team GB also jumps on the NFT bandwagon
The British Olympic Association, commonly known as Team GB, decided to establish its presence in the metaverse by launching the sports NFT community called the Gold Lion Club. The initiative was realized in collaboration with Tokns Commerce, the platform established by a group of British sports and media executives that centers around the generation of sustainable royalties derived from NFT sales, as well as the development of Web3 and the metaverse.
The cooperation between these two entities began last year right after the conclusion of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The latest collection dubbed the Gold Lion Club: Winter 2022 is characterized by the creators as “fan tokens re-imagined” and is claimed to be “powerfully simple, carbon-neutral, and utility packed.” Right now, the sale of tokens is carried out on an application basis; British sports fans can also place bids on the artwork inspired by these international sporting events.
NFTs that reveal civil rights violations of the Chinese government
We know all too well that China is an authoritarian state, the government of which doesn’t care much about human and civil rights, but it’s important to keep this topic relevant, which is exactly what the dissident digital artist named Baduicao is trying to accomplish through the display of NFT posters at the Santa Guilia Museum in Italy. The said collection is comprised of five artworks that demonstrate the atrocities of the Chinese government towards the people of Tibet, the Uygur genocide, the constant attempts to undermine democracy in Hong Kong, and the controversy surrounding the roots of the COVID-19 pandemic.