Creators of CryptoKitties Obtain Digital Token Patent with the NBA

The blockchain industry continues to impact the sports world in a big way. The NBA plans to issue its own collectibles, and it’s tapping into a well-known development group to make it happen.

CryptoKitties Meets NBA

The creators of CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs, has been successful in obtaining a patent for collectible tokens in Brazil. The approval is a major step towards sports collectibles in the country, which the team is working closely with the NBA to make a reality. The story was recently reported by BeInCrypto Brazil. The approval was first published in the Intellectual Property Magazine of Rio de Janeiro. The record of the patent states that Dapper Labs and the NBA are together working to leverage blockchain technology for digital collectibles. As a relatively untapped field, Dapper Labs now has the rights in Brazil to utilize the NBA’s branding for its collectibles. The usage rights include players, game images, photos, highlights, and other information on the basketball league. It should be noted that this is not merely collectibles. Instead, the NBA hopes to give fans more control, and tokens will be linked to events, contracts, and specific interactions with players. In short, this is unlike any other digital collectible initiative seen before.

Professional Sports and the Blockchain World

Professional sports teams have taken more and more interest in the cryptocurrency space, especially in the last year or so. Here at BeInCrypto, we have extensively covered this emerging development as the examples are numerous. The Cleveland Cavaliers last year formed a partnership with United Coin and The English Premier League features many cryptocurrency logos in their advertising now. Watford FC, for example, has been sporting the prominent Bitcoin logo on its jerseys. However, most collaborations between cryptocurrencies and sports have happened on the marketing level. Although there have been some digital token offerings related to sports, the sector is still small. That’s why Dapper Labs is trying to jump into digital collectibles with a big splash, and they are now seeing a clear opening for fans to own tokens with which they can use to directly interact with the teams they love. The possibilities are arguably endless for such a collaboration. So, we may be getting used to cryptocurrency marketing in sports. However, the real push will be toward tokenization, and on that front, the collaboration is just getting started.