The latest Taiwanese celebrity to jump on the non-fungible token (NFT) bandwagon is famous pop star icon Jay Chou. According to online news sources, a company backed by Jay Chou has released an NFT project, The Phanta Bears, which consists of around 10,000 NFTs. The NFTs in this collection was in the form of digital avatars that were algorithmically generated. They are reportedly based on Jay Chou’s fashion brand, PHANTACi. Each Phanta Bear is depicted in a unique way, with different clothing, colors, and accessories that have been designed by Jay Chou’s fashion brand.
The NFT collection was put on sale on Starvision’s decentralized entertainment platform, Ezek, on New Year’s Day. As per the news sources, the NFT collection was sold out within 40 minutes of its release. On 3 January 2022, the prices of Phanta Bears rose to almost 0.4 ETH on the OpenSea NFT marketplace. This represented a significant increase from the issuance value of 0.26 ETH or $1,000. The Phanta Bears also double up as membership cards for Ezek. The users who purchase the Phanta Bears will allow access to a host of benefits offered on Ezek, which are open only to the members. It has also been found that the owners of Phanta Bears NFTs will get priority access to Ezek’s entertainment metaverse.
The popularity of NFTs has grown significantly in the past year, with many celebrities launching their own NFT collections. Quite recently, one of China’s biggest media organizations, Xinhua News Agency, issued its first NFT collection in the form of ‘news collectibles’
