Andrew Thurman

Traders on Coinbase’s new Base chain have piled over $450,000 into an NFT offering from brand giant Coca-Cola — a strong showing despite the fact that major brand NFT launches have consistently demonstrated a lackluster history on secondary markets.



Coinbase <a href="https://twitter.com/BuildOnBase/status/1690763520475078656">announced</a> the launch of the collection on Sunday, part of the chain’s “Onchain Summer” initiative, and minting began roughly at noon in New York. The inspiration for the collection is an aesthetically confused mashup of both classic and contemporary art with Coke bottles.&nbsp;



In the initial days of minting, the new collection quickly gained popularity among collectors. At time of writing, nearly 60,000 Masterpieces have been minted, bringing in over $450,000. Minting is scheduled to end Wednesday at 12 pm ET.&nbsp;



Among the 3,000 individual NFT collections on Base, Masterpiece contract addresses account for 8 of the top 50 most <a href="https://basescan.org/tokens-nft">active</a> collections in terms of transfers on a 24-hour basis, despite being just a few hours old.&nbsp;



The Masterpieces mint <a href="https://basescan.org/address/0x9a466c55f0cfc8ea3cee03de0eb94bf35a934522#internaltx">contract</a> has been sending proceeds of the sale to a secondary address, which has <a href="https://basescan.org/address/0xc1a7fa0e887bb29fb5423eb44ba912b4bc32af0f">collected</a> just over 192 ether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/eth">ETH</a>) worth $360,000 for the three classic painter themed collections of Vermeer, Munch and Van Gogh. Secondary addresses for the contemporary artists have gone to separate addresses, raking in a total of $88,000.&nbsp;



The Base chain is quickly emerging as a destination for NFT traders. According to two Dune Analytics dashboards, over the past week, transfers for two popular NFT standards — ERC-721 and ERC-1155 — have been growing steadily, with Base now accounting for over 10% of total multichain <a href="https://dune.com/queries/2638580/4383084?Select+Timeframe_e15077=7">volume</a> for both standards.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Future prospects</h2>



Despite the hot start in what is otherwise a sluggish bear market for NFTs, Masterpieces buyers may have a rough road ahead of them in terms of turning profit on their digital Coke bottles.&nbsp;



Historically, buying NFT collections from major brands has been a fraught proposition for traders. Fellow drink giant Budweiser launched the Budverse Cans: Heritage Edition <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/budverse-cans-heritage-edition">collection</a> in November 2021, selling digital images of stylized historical beer cans for $499, or $999 “gold” cans. Since the mint, the floor price has fallen to .1 ETH on scant volume, representing a drawdown of 63%.&nbsp;



This type of performance is not unusual for NFT launches from major brands.&nbsp;



TIME Magazine’s NFT drop was one of the most chaotic in Ethereum’s history, with MEV <a href="https://twitter.com/Jiran_z/status/1441078030152060929">bots</a> crowding the mint such that the collection sold out almost immediately. While the NFTs originally sold for .1 ETH, climbed as high as 3 ETH after mint, but now has settled at .03 ETH — a dollar-term drawdown of 83%.&nbsp;



Generally speaking, brand collections enjoy a brief pump before collapsing and permanently remaining under mint price. However, multiple pieces from the Masterpieces collection have already fallen below their mint on OpenSea, even though minting is still open for another day.



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Collectors buy $450k in Coca-Cola NFTs despite poor historical performance

Shalini Nagarajan

Coca-Cola in Serbia and Solana NFT platform SolSea are working together on a non-fungible token offering at a music event.&nbsp;



The deal allows the soda company to give away 100 limited edition hoodies, along with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/nfts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NFTs</a>, to some participants.



NFT infrastructure protocol All.Art is a facilitator. According to a July 5 <a href="https://allart.medium.com/exit-festival-x-coca-cola-serbia-x-solsea-x-all-art-260e2a75e58" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog</a>, festival-goers can use a tool called &#8220;Magic Mirror,&#8221; which places random merchandise on the users in a 3D image, which they can see in real-time. Users can then get a picture of this by scanning a QR code.



The deal will be available from July 6 to 9 at the EXIT Festival, a yearly event in Novi Sad, Serbia. Prominent industry names like Alesso, Ben Böhmer, Dimitri Vegas &amp; Like Mike, Eric Prydz and Skrillex are set to perform.



The collection has been split into batches, with some available for purchase at the festival while others are exclusively reserved for high-value festival ticket holders, a SolSea spokesperson told Blockworks.



In a world where digital items can be easily duplicated, NFTs which provide indisputable proof of ownership of a digital asset is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mastering-nfts">seen as a game-changer for brands</a>.



When a brand sells an NFT, it&#8217;s selling a one-of-a-kind digital asset that can’t be perfectly copied. This makes the item rare, and that rarity can sometimes increase its value, when the item is in demand.



Moreover, NFTs form part of a traditional marketing initiative, by offering a new way to engage with younger, tech-savvy audiences who are familiar with the digital and crypto space. As a result, many brands are exploring NFTs as a way to delve deeper into the digital world, increase engagement and open up new revenue streams.



Coca-Cola has taken part in other projects involving NFTs in the past.



In 2021, the company <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tafi-partners-in-coca-colas-first-ever-nft-collectibles-in-support-of-international-friendship-day-301342777.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">worked with 3D art platform Tafi</a> to make virtual NFT loot boxes and auction them in the metaverse.



Then, it <a href="https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/coca-cola-nft-auction-fetches-more-than-575000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sold its first-ever digital collectibles</a> on NFT platform OpenSea for more than $575,000. Funds generated were given to the Special Olympics International.



Coca-Cola has also <a href="https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/pride-inspired-digital-collectibles-benefiting-lgbtqia-charities" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">made digital collectibles to celebrate Pride Month</a> and the <a href="https://crypto.com/company-news/coca-cola-teams-up-with-crypto-com-and-digital-artist-gmunk-to-release-nfts-celebrating-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2022 FIFA World Cup</a> in Qatar.



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