An NFT-powered basketball game, Sorare NBA, set a new record on Monday when a single NFT of basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo changed hands for $186,000 or about 115.24 ETH. This is the highest sale posted on the young platform.
The auctioning of Antetokounmpo NFT took place on Sorare NBA’s Ethereum-based platform. This sale more than tripled the previous peak sale that involved Anthony Davis NFT, which sold for about $60,000 or 48 ETH in December 2022, as per CryptoSlam.
Sorare NBA Sale Becomes the Biggest Ever for Antetokounmpo’s NFTs
The recent Sorare NBA sale means it is the biggest among all Antetokounmpo NFTs. On Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, the top sale for the NBA superstar is around $94,000. The transaction happened in February 2021.
However, when compared to sales of physical trading cards, even the recent Sorare NBA best sale is nowhere close to what antetokounmpo’s rookie card sold for in 2020. This trading card changed hands for $1.81 million at that time.
The $186,000 sale is significant for Sorare NBA, considering the fact that the platform only launched last October. Additionally, it comes at a time when NFT prices across the space have declined. Even NBA Top Shot hasn’t seen that kind of sale for 18 months.
NFT Space Records More Sales in January
Generally, there has been an increase in NFT sales in recent weeks. Data on DappRadar shows that total organic trading volume increased by 37% in January, thus suggesting that the NFT space could be recovering.
Sports collectibles are becoming popular thanks to NBA Top Shot which played a big role in introducing these types of NFTs into the mainstream back in 2021. Top Shot has generated $1 billion in secondary sales to date.
However, most of these sales were recorded in early 2021, which included Top Shot’s biggest sale, where LeBron James’s NFT, in which he mimicked the famous Kobe Bryant dunk, was traded for almost $390,000.
Sorare is popular for its NFT-based fantasy basketball game but recently added NBA spinoffs and Major League Baseball. From these three platforms, the French startup has generated a trading volume worth $545 since it launched.
