Different ARTIFACT trading cards will be assigned to various rarity levels.
As part of its ARTIFACT project, SCMP joined other media organizations around the world that see NFT as an integral part of the future of digital publishing.
South China Morning Post and Dapper Labs, creators of the popular non-fungible token series NBA Top Shot, will release several NFT cards commemorating the history of Hong Kong, with the first drop covering 1997 at the end of British colonial rule.
With a 118-year-old media archive, the Post is Hong Kong’s paper of record dating back to 1903. A copy of the full whitepaper on ARTIFACT, the news organisation’s NFT project based on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, was released on Tuesday.
More specifically, the company is looking to release in the coming months a series of NFT trading cards based on many iconic moments in Hong Kong’s history. The inaugural drop of the 1997 Series will cover many historical moments in 1997, including the July 1 ceremony commemorating Hong Kong’s handover to the Chinese government, the passing of Deng Xiaoping on February 19 that year and the death of Princess Diana in August.
“We are delighted to join the Flow ecosystem and partner with a major global blockchain innovator in Dapper Labs. This partnership is essential for creating world-class NFT experiences of our historical archives,†said the company’s CEO Gary Liu, “Through our ARTIFACT whitepaper, we look forward to inspiring other ‘guardians of history’ to share our vision of making history more discoverable, connected, and collectable.â€
Tuesday’s whitepaper also announced the establishment of a Council of Experts to guide the forming of the ARTIFACT standard, including Alibaba Group Holding’s co-founder Joe Tsai, President of Christie’s Asia Pacific Francis Belin, Dapper Labs’ co-founder Mikhael Naayem and Animoca Brands’ chairman Yat Siu. Alibaba is the sole owner of the SCMP, and Tsai is the chairman of the publisher.
The Post first announced its ARTIFACT project in July, joining other media organizations around the world that see NFT as part of the future for the digital publishing industry. In June, CNN launched “Vault by CNN†to tokenise its history of news coverage. In August, Fortune raised 429 ether, valued at about US$1.3 million at the time, in its first-ever NFT sale.
An immersive art installation titled “Machine Hallucinations’ Space: Metaverse†by the media artist Refik Anadol, which will be converted into NFT and auctioned online at Sotheby’s, at the Digital Art Fair, in Hong Kong, on September 30, 2021. Photo: Reuters
The Post’s inaugural 1997 Series collectible cards will be divided into four rarity levels which correspond to the varying degrees of significance of the events these cards are based on.
The card based on the Post’s front-page coverage of the 1997 handover ceremony will be classified as “Super Rare,†while another commemorating the outbreak of the bird flu will be of the “Rare†grade. Other events such as the arrest of Hong Kong’s jockeys and horse racing trainers will be of the “Common†grade.
The 1997 Series is the first of many NFT collections that the Post plans to launch. The company looks to release NFT in the forms of both “Base Series†and “Thematic Dropâ€. The “Base Series†will contain NFTs based on historical moments in a specific year but the “Thematic Drop†will cover events of a specific theme.
A visitor takes a photo in front of digital work “Untitled (Self-Portrait)†by Andy Warhol and the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, at the Digital Art Fair in Hong Kong on September 30, 2021. Photo: Reuters.
Excitement around NFTs first reached a fever pitch in March when the American artist Beeple auctioned a digital collage of his art at Christie’s for US$69 million. That same month, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet for over US$2.9 million.
In the ensuing months, Hong Kong emerged as a popular destination for both NFT launches as well as auctions amid scepticism and wariness among mainland China’s financial regulators. Last month, some of the biggest names in Hong Kong’s entertainment world – including Wong Kar-wai, Gigi Yim and Hins Cheung – unveiled respective NFT projects.
Wong, the director best known for In the Mood for Love, sold an NFT based on behind-the-scenes footage from his masterpiece in October for HK$4.3 million (US$553,000) via a Sotheby’s auction. Shawn Yue Man-lok, a Hong Kong movie star who starred in Infernal Affairs II, shocked the city in September when he sold his collections of 14 NFTs. They comprised popular art pieces such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club and fetched about HK$120 million at an auction organised by Christie’s, marking a new Asia record.
