Thursday saw breaking news of a new partnership between the NBA Golden State Warriors and the cryptocurrency exchange FTX (US).
The new development will see Warrior-launched NFT’s listed on the FTX US exchange as part of a first-of-its-kind collaboration between an NBA Team and Cryptocurrency Exchange.
This puts FTX as the Official Crypto Exchange and NFT partner for the Warriors.
FTX first became popular with cryptocurrency traders as an exchange that offers different futures and leverage products with a good UI/UX and easy onboarding. The Exchange has gone out of it’s way to stay within certain regulations which has garnered good standing in the court of public opinion. This is a stark contrast to the regulatory scrutiny that Binance has been making headlines with over the past 12 months.
In the last 12 months FTX has been on a mission to become more mainstream, directly targeting Professional Sports. Stephen Curry and Tom Brady have both joined the FTX team as ambassadors for the exchange. Add to that sponsoring some major events, and being the official arena sponsor for the Miami Heat, it’s safe to assume that FTX will continue to push for more visibility in the sporting world.
FTX is led by Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF), widely regarded as one of the most astute and charasmatic leaders in the crypto space to date. The projects backed by SBF have come to be known among enthusiasts as “Sam Coins” and include projects like Solana, Serum and, of course, FTT (FTX Exchange token). FTX also closed a Series-B funding round in July. Raising $900M with a valuation of $18B. This was the largest raise for any cryptocurrency exchange to date.
With popularity growing for the Metaverse and an explosion of interest in NFT’s, this specific partnership seems like a no-brainer for both parties. NBA Top Shots was an NFT project that attracted a lot of attention, and dollars, earlier this year. Reaching die-hard fans with a new category of digital collectibles is just one more way to reach Crypto and NBA enthusiasts.
“Cryptocurrency has a well-established worldwide community and is going to continue to be a major part of the sports, media and entertainment industries,” said Warriors President/COO Brandon Schneider. “In our conversations with FTX, we quickly realized our joint desire to innovate around cryptocurrency integration and adoption, including the role NFTs play in global fan engagement.”
The Warriors remain one of the most popular NBA franchises and with Stephen Curry being on team FTX, the partnership makes sense on multiple levels. No launch date was given for when the first NFT’s will drop on the FTX marketplace.
