I am focusing this post primarily on the fast-growing realm of DIGITAL COLLECTIBLES. Having written a few articles on the topic, I will keep the definition short - these are assets (such as Digital Comic Books, NFTS, Artworks, etc.) produced in digital format, sold via an app or website, and minted on a blockchain to prove actual ownership of that asset.
Fantastic Four #1 CGC Physical Slab (Left), shown with its new sibling, VeVe's Digital Collectible Version with Slab provided by Secret Rare SlabsAs a prior blog example, you can visit Marvel Unlimited and read as many comics online as you wish. You can save images / screen-grab covers and so forth, but not actually own the comic book itself (cannot buy, sell, trade, etc.). Similarly, you can walk into any comic book store, purchase your favourite book and own it. However, you may possibly own one of 100's of 1000's of printed issues and depending on the price/rarity/value, etc., may not even want to read the book for fear of degrading its pages or future resale value.
Grading, storing & selling are also issues discussed in prior blogs, but affect the use case if you decide to engage in grading or selling of your item.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO A PHYSICAL COMIC / STATUE / POSTER, OR ANY ASSET COLLECTOR?
CGC Comic Book RatingsBecause data now shows the undeniable blending of physical & historical collecting systems supporting their new digital counterparts. These two worlds are colliding quickly, allowing consumers to choose the path how they wish to enjoy their collections.
Mount your physical slabbed Fantastic Four #1 on your wall? Sure! Print a copy of its "Publication Date" Mint Number Digital Collectible beside it? Yes again. Sell your asset instantly to anyone across the globe? You get it.
Why is this happening?
Easy - since the late 1990's society has slowly been encouraged (and educated) to do more and more online, from banking to shopping to Google Maps to streaming Disney+ on Connected-TV. It has enhanced many aspects of our daily lives and the truth is, we are simply accustomed to it.
Anyone under the age of, oh, let's say 75 today is essentially immersed in hours of daily digital use. So true holds the future of collecting, and while I am by NO MEANS suggesting physical assets will lose value (IMHO they will continue to accrue it as they age and become more scarce), the reality is a new age of collecting is here, growing and bringing with it incredible opportunities.
Are you a collector? Comic or Collectibles store owner? Maybe someone who loves to be part of a collector fandom or group? Check out this video by MyCollectibles - a former comic store owner, collector, and absolutely positive member of the digital collecting community, which really sums up what is coming and why he pivoted to this new format.
HERE ARE A FEW THINGS TO CONSIDER
The VeVe / Marvel Booth, '22 SD Comic-ConVeVe Digital Collectibles
This barely 2-year-old company has now generated over $1,000,000,000 in gross digital collectible revenue. Most of it in a full-on Bear Market. (See VeVe & Ecomi token influencer Foster Hilt's video referencing this milestone). It took Amazon 5 YEARS to reach this level! Check this Fast Company list of other key companies & how long they needed to hit $1B...
As a result, this New Zealand-based company recently won the coveted Extraordinary Growth in Emerging Markets award, from the New Zealand government's international business development agency, NZTE. See VeVe (image above) sharing the prime real estate booth with MARVEL @ the 2022 Comic-Con event in San Diego- these fans are ENTHUSED.
Google Trends & Twitter Trends
Run some queries for terms like digital collecting/collectibles, NFTs, etc. and it's fun to see how search volumes change depending on what is happening in the real world. Spikes are often noticed during movie releases, character speculation announcements, and more recently when digital collecting apps announce drops.
The big spikes when "NFTs" made headlines at their outset, were generated when many people tried to quickly learn & understand the terms being discussed everywhere or tried to take advantage of the "1st Mover / Early Adopter" timing. Now though, the queries trend to more investigative work - usually fewer, but with deeper purpose and engagement or decision-planning reasons vs the huge rushes to Google when media goes wild. You can also check out your favourite platform stats like Twitter Trends as well.
Meeting Favourite Artists at Comic-ConsOr how about researching the artists who helped shape & create these new digital assets? Imagine finding Brian Stelfreeze at a local show where you can have his 1:1 Black Panther artwork signed - both on the physical print AND its 1:1 version of that release in the VeVe app? Imagine how excited the artist was to meet a fan wanting to own both his physical and digital equivalents? This is happening...more and more every day.
GoCollect
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Everyone's favourite resource for comic & collecting is starting to notice search volume analytics showing marked increases when digital collecting apps like VeVe or DC Comics announce their "drops' (when a new asset is listed on the app).
Looking at some of their recent data, terms like "Superman 1, Avengers 10 & Avengers Annual 10" are nearing the top. The DC NFT UNIVERSE dropped their 1st Digital Collectible comic, Superman 1 on October 27th - hype was enormous, and as the weeks have gone by, digital collectors continue to check prices against real world, physical values as they plan investments against other options.
VeVe dropped the Avengers Annual #10 NFT on December 1st. Some "very keen" Marvel collectors would know AA#10 is the first appearance of Rogue...but why all of a sudden would GoCollect see a spike in traffic that grew over 5,000 queries from October to November?
CherryCharts.com
If you are not a member of the VeVe Community on Twitter (or other social channels), you may not have heard of CherryCharts. But as a comic collector, you would certainly know the names CGC, PBX, or CBCS identifying the grade of your asset and encasing it with a protective cover defining its value. And boy do those look impressive on a display shelf.
With digital collectible comics (or comic NFTs), the quality is all but assured - as digital assets, they are near perfect in production on each mint, can be read an unlimited number of times, yet appear relatively similar in how their covers are viewed or "showed off.' What makes them unique are the rarities produced (usually 4-to-5 'cover variants') or the mint numbers that signify when they 'came off the blockchain printer.'
To enhance the appeal, showcase unique or special mint #'s, and increase fan engagement overall, CherryCharts created "digital slabs" for owners to amplify their collections. The process is INCREDIBLY easy - simply visit the 'Slabs' section of their website, use their scroll-menu to select your book & variant cover, enter your special notes and click Generate Slab.
If this sounds gimmicky, consider this - the site just reached over 15,000 slabs created in the past few months, all driven by community engagement & sharing their beloved pieces on social media!
In turn, this is leading to NFT assets being repurposed into physical, print & coffee table books, T-Shirts, wall art & even AR/VR videos that generate enormous praise & applause!
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From this, we are seeing growth in the space with a variety of slab producers that offer options "more traditional" in nature, such as Secret Rare (image below in "The Fans!"), Meta Slabs who grade NFTs, NFT Slabs who focus on sports trading cards and now, even NFT / Digital Collectible frames to showcase your prized pieces from companies like TokenFrame.
THE FANS!!!
Without a growing, passionate, and loyal community any project would be at risk. However, the numbers we see today are compelling. VeVe has roughly 300,000 users, with over 235,000 Twitter Fans, paired with 116,000 Instagram followers. Rock solid growth, yet have engaged in almost no marketing outside of social influencers. The masses are still generally unaware, but when the shift to marketing takes shape (estimates are this commences in 2023), those who are in early could potentially stand to realise enormous benefit as demand surges.
Considering DC Comics has 5.3M Twitter / 13M IG followers, Marvel with 16.8M Twitter / 67.2M IG, Disney 9.7M Twitter / 35.6M IG & Star Wars 6.2M Twitter / 15.8M IG (just FOUR examples of the 100's of iconic brand IP VeVe has partnered with), VeVe is EXTREMELY WELL positioned with these partners to drive significant user-base growth to fans who simply love to collect assets from the brands they love. Digital Collectibles make this very, very easy.
WHY THIS SHOULD MATTER TO COLLECTORS & DIGITAL COLLECTIBLE VALUE CHECKING?
Let's use Marvel Comics #1, launched August, 1939 as our first Marvel comic appearance. The CGC rating system arrived in the year 2000. That was a 61-year gap until a standardized grading & slabbing system was produced. VeVe has been around for just 2 years, the DC NFT Universe less than one. 2D NFT images of monkeys, apes & creatures of all sorts hit the mainstream fast during the Covid-19 era, but without any real "valuation" system other than what the market decided.
Comic books have a system in place. It's trusted, proven and it works. Yet, it will have to consider these surges in new technology. Until then, digital collectible comic buyers are using them to help determine if a digital book is worth its asking price, seeking its real-world comparison as a guide while using these resources to learn about key information - publication dates, total print versions in circulation & how many have been graded, key issues or part of a series run, etc.
GoCollect, Amazon, eBay, Google, YouTube...all benefit from traffic growth as buyers research characters, storylines, relevant dates before hunting key mints in the app and so forth. Rarity or total graded book info is used to compare how scarce a real-world asset is relevant to its new digital counterpart, which are also held to rare release limits. Marvel, DC, Disney+, Netflix, Theaters, Comic Book Retailers...all also benefitting by a new resurgence in these stories, the characters, and the experiences being created as a result. Ultimately, this holds more promise for comic collecting to surge than suffer.
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Again, the worlds of physical (traditional) and digital collecting are blending. PHYGITAL is here. This is not about which will win or hold more value, this is about how the entire market for collecting is growing and adopting innovation, and how we can all enjoy and participate in this change along with these new opportunities and audiences.
And I have never enjoyed comic collecting as much as I do today!
