NFTs have taken off in many parts of the world over the past year, but trading in the fast-growing blockchain-powered and verifiable digital assets has yet to gain a foothold in India. Now a local startup — backed by high-profile investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Coatue Management and Dapper Labs — believes it has cracked the code to win customers in the world’s second-largest internet market.
FanCraze launched its digital assets on Thursday, capturing moments from a game that’s intimately – and often a crucial part of – the lives of 1.3 billion people: cricket.
A foreign game to most Americans (their loss), cricket is one of the most addictive and popular sports in several parts of the world. Its overall fan base dwarfs that of several other popular sports combined.
Such is its popularity in certain parts of the world that global giants Netflix and Prime Video are struggling to compete against India’s hotstar, an on-demand streaming service gained over 300 million users thanks largely to its large catalog of cricket streaming rights.
Hotstar, which later became part of Disney the $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Foxis now a major player in the American conglomerate worldwide expansion plans. FanCraze is now trying to capitalize on the game’s popularity with NFTs.
These NFTs capture some of the game’s most iconic moments including MS Dhoni leading India to victory at the 2011 World Cup with a six at Wankhede Stadium, South Africa’s infamous fumble against Australia, Yuvraj Singh’s unforgettable six and Sachin Tendulkar hitting the ball across the park in a stalemate against Pakistan at the 2003 World Cup.
Key to delivering these iconic moments is an exclusive, multi-year partnership that FanCraze has formed with ICC, the global governing body of cricket. The startup has also teamed up individually with several cricketers including Rohit Sharma, Jonty Rhodes, Muthiah Muralidaran, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah to provide additional exclusive moments, Anshum Bhambri, FanCraze founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview with TechCrunch.
“I’ve been a huge cricket fan all my life, like most Indians. As an NRI, watching the same YouTube videos over and over again has given me great comfort and solace during sleepless nights. These moments are priceless not just for me, but for billions of people around the world,” he said.
“ICC has provided us with an archive of video footage and still images going back 50 years to the present. This archive and the rights to it have always existed in big, fat legal contracts. What NFTs have done is make these IPs liquid and tradable by breaking them down into small chunks — 50-60 second videos and stills — that are now provably ownable and provably scarce due to blockchain technology, so you be able to state how many copies of a Moment might exist and prove who owns each copy without having to rely on a third party to verify the truth,” he said.
At the heart of FanCraze – and similar NFT startups like NBA Top Shot and SoRare – the idea is that fans will have a more direct relationship with creators and athletes and the two will be able to leverage and reap the most benefit from the value they create.
NBA Top Shot, the licensed NBA “Moments” on the Dapper Labs Flow blockchain, processes tens of millions of sales each month. His NFTs — something that proponents say is the future of wealth-raising while skeptics call it a preposterous form of speculation — have turned several millionaires into fans.
The Web3 idea – flipping the model on who gets the most value in a transaction – is in direct contrast to the business models of many large companies around the world. In any IPL cricket tournament season, it’s the platforms like Hotstar that end up making more money than BCCI and other cricket boards or, you know, cricketers.
I asked Bhambri if he plans to expand FanCraze to more categories and companies. The startup could expand into other sports and has long-term ideas for expansions, but it said cricket NFTs – or “Crictos” – will be its main offering for a few years.
FanCraze also makes the experience of buying these digital assets very easy to bring NFTs to the masses. Typically, when a person wants to buy an NFT or any other crypto asset, they need to identify the blockchain it’s trading on and understand how to operate the right wallet, and then buy the native token they want to use for the Buying and paying the transaction requires fee.
FanCraze allows users to purchase the NFT using multiple payment options including plastic cards, wallets and UPI in India. (Users from outside of India can also purchase the NFTs.) Once a user makes the purchase, it is automatically saved on the Flow blockchain.
The startup launched three different NFT packages today, starting as low as $9 each. Later this week, FanCraze says it will launch its marketplace where users can trade the NFTs. FanCraze is also developing cricket-based games that use these NFTs in gameplay and for earning in-game Karma points, increasing the usefulness of the NFTs, Bhambri said.
“These karma points can be used to upgrade or craft the NFTs (where crafting is the process of changing the attributes or metadata of the NFTs). Improved NFTs are more powerful in gameplay, which in turn improves the user’s chances of winning. Users can sell the crafted NFTs and Karma Points to other users,” he said.
